Controlled by Fate
by PuppyLuvr06
Summary: After one of the scouts come back with some disturbing news, the Order of Heroes must follow a legend in hopes to solve the problem. Unluckily for them, it's a lot easier said than done... Semi-AU. Rated T just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

"This world is falling apart. Reality is unstable here, the future's more uncertain than it ever has been. Could things have been different..? If only we'd known since the beginning this was going to happen, maybe we could've stopped this mess…"

…

The room was quiet and dimly lit. Neither of them moved from their spots. Anna was beginning to look worried and seemed to be getting a little impatient. Alfonse just wished he'd taken a book to read while they waited for the Summoner; if he'd known she'd be this late he probably would have.

"Fauna normally isn't late…" Anna muttered, frowning.

"She's probably being held up by Sharena." Alfonse told her with a little shrug. He glanced over at Anna. "Surely whatever the scouts came back with doesn't worry you that much..?"

"It's not what they came back with that concerns me," Anna answered. "It's what they didn't."

Well that didn't clear things up in the slightest. It didn't give him any peace of mind on the subject, either; after all Anna had called the meeting suddenly and rarely got this worried when someone didn't show up on time. Seeing the normally-levelheaded commander like this was concerning and almost a little frightening.

"Can you at least tell me why it's just the three of us?" Alfonse asked, hoping she'd tell him something that actually made sense.

"Some Heroes work better when they're just blindly given orders," Anna began. "They tend to break down when their perfect bubble of a completely good world gets popped by reality. For all I know this is just a false alarm—it's not worth troubling everyone over."

"And if it isn't?"

The door opened before he could get an answer.

"Sorry it took me so long," the Summoner said. She pulled down the white-and-gold hood of her cloak before closing the door and walking over to them. "This is admittedly still a little new to me…"

Anna gave her a little nod. "What matters is that you're here, Fauna." After a moment's pause, she continued. "Both of you should remember the scouts that were sent out two weeks ago. Today one of them finally came back."

Fauna already looked uncomfortable. "Just…one?"

"One." Anna confirmed grimly. "Though it's more like half—I've barely been able to get a word out of him. The only thing I know for certain is where at least some of it happened." She pointed to a spot on the map that was on the table.

Alfonse frowned once he recognized the locations around it. "That's near the more protected side of the Emblian border. They shouldn't have ended up that far no matter where you sent them."

"Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt here," Fauna suggested quietly. "Maybe the others went to their own world for the winter festival and got a little sidetracked…"

"There's no portals on Askr's side there." Alfonse informed her bluntly. "Embla has a few, but for Heroes who expect to cross the border unnoticed there'd be more risked than gained. There'd be no practical reason to travel across the border like that."

Fauna gave a defeated sigh. "Oh."

"There's something I need to do in the area anyway," Anna continued, regaining both of their attentions. "I can try to ask around in case anyone knows anything."

"So you'll be going alone." Alfonse didn't like that idea. He'd seen their commander do impressive and near impossible things before, but only a fool would think Anna would be fine on her own so close to Emblian land.

Anna looked over at him. "I'll be fine. Try using that worried mindset of yours for someone who needs it." She paused. "That's an order."

"An order I might not be able to follow," Alfonse replied casually. Anna just glared at him in response.

There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. "I'm tasking the two of you with keeping everything in check while I'm gone. Don't let anyone do anything stupid. Can I trust you two to do that?"

Fauna and Alfonse nodded in unison. Anna grinned, walking over to the door.

"Couldn't find a more reliable duo if I tried," she remarked.

"Need I remind you to be careful?" Alfonse asked.

Anna glared at him with an annoyed expression. "Hate to sound like Sharena, but stop that. I'll be perfectly fine, you probably won't even notice I'm gone." She left before the conversation could continue.

Fauna sighed, walking over to the door. "So, see you at dinner? Everyone's pitching in for it, you could join us if you want."

Alfonse shrugged and joined her by the door, though he didn't say anything when he opened it and started his way to the grand hall.

(This chapter introduces the problem, but to limit some confusion that might happen later on, the next few chapters explain the setting a bit more and such.

If anyone has any questions—and have waited a few chapters for a possible in-story explanation—I can answer them through PM; if enough of a certain question is asked I'll answer the question in an Author's Note similar to this.)


	2. Chapter 2

Apparently Fauna wasn't lying; whatever Heroes that weren't rushing in and out of the kitchen were setting up the table. He overheard some of them exchanging stories of what they'd done while visiting their home world, and a few of them whispering about the entertainment. Everyone seemed busy or even a bit rushed, and he wondered exactly how much he must've missed by keeping most interactions to a minimum the past few days.

"Oh, Alfonse!" He watching as Sharena practically dropped everything she had been holding, standing in front of him moments later. "I didn't realize you were here!"

"Well I wasn't until about a half hour ago…"

She seemed to completely ignore him, giving him the mischievous grin he'd grown to dislike. Most of the ideas seemed to be thought of just for his displeasure when Sharena made him do it anyway. "So you wanna tell me about your dream the other night?"

"I've no clue what you're talking about," Alfonse answered simply.

"Oh, really?" Sharena prompted skeptically, obviously unable to hide her smile. "Nothing on the lines of 'we're never going to hear the end of this' and 'the only ones who'd really notice is our sisters'?"

"W-wait, you heard that?!" He hoped he didn't actually say any of it out loud. Thinking of it now the dream was impossible and a bit embarrassing, though the feeling was worse now that he knew he'd said those things aloud.

Sharena giggled and nodded. "Everything you said." When he just glared at her, she continued. "At first I was just passing by, and then I heard 'I think I'm in love with you' and I got curious. Actually I thought it was kinda cute and I'm actually surprised I hadn't thought of it sooner!"

He didn't know which was worse: that someone had heard him, or that Sharena had heard him. "Please tell me you haven't told anyone."

"My lips are sealed." She promised, and he could only hope it was genuine. "So is that why you're doing that weird brooding thing again?"

Alfonse sighed. There wasn't any point on changing the subject now; Sharena would just bring it back up again as soon as she could. "I wouldn't call it 'weird brooding thing' but, admittedly, yes." Suffice to say he'd spent the last few days cooped up in the royal castle's library on hopes of finding something that could bring them a step closer to making the dream reality. So far the search had been fruitless.

"Knew it!" She said happily, though quickly frowned. "But seriously though stop doing that. It's…a bit scary when you kind of just disappear. At least warn me next time, okay?"

"I'll try," the words seemed to please her.

Sharena gestured over to the bustling scene behind her. "So you wanna help out? Fauna should be here soon with some more decorations, so I could use the help setting them up!"

He was going to feel dumb asking this aloud, but… "Remind me what all this is for, again?"

"Oh right, you weren't there." Sharena remarked to herself quietly, before turning around and gesturing for him to follow her. "Since the last of the Heroes came back from their winter festival break yesterday, we're doing our own feast for the whole Order. It's kinda like we're this big, mostly happy family, all crowded into a when-compared-to-everyone-here tiny room!"

She didn't even make it sound like something he'd enjoy. And she seemed to notice that.

"Did I mention I'll put glitter on your sword and dye all your clothes pink if you don't come?" Sharena added, looking over to him and smiling innocently.

"Commander Anna banned you from glitter years ago." Alfonse reminded her matter-of-factly, if not just to reassure himself. He learned years ago that she didn't make empty threats; by now he knew better than to tell her no. Particularly when she was set on something like this. "And I don't think the Heroes will be letting you near the laundry anytime soon."

"STOP LOGIC-ING!" Sharena shot back in a half-commanding, half-whining tone. "It would help if you could just come without me needing to bribe you."

Now he was considering if this was the part where she tried to guilt trip him. Really he knew how she tried to get him to do certain things, and most of the time he just rolled with it. No one wanted to see an unhappy Sharena, anyway.

"Sharena, please." Alfonse began, earning him a displeased look from his sister. "I get it, really I do. But—"

"There you two are! I thought you weren't in here for a minute." He didn't know if he was grateful for or annoyed that Fauna walked over to them, dropping a box of paper decorations between them. She looked up at them. "And… I just did that thing where I interrupted something important, didn't I..?"

Sharena's expression lit up, the mischievous grin appearing again. "Nope! In fact Alfonse just agreed to join us!" She looked over at him. "Isn't that right, Brother?"

Alfonse sighed. So this is how the evening was going to go. "Yes, Sister."

"Er, that's great!" Fauna said awkwardly. Either she knew he didn't really want to or she just didn't expect him to. "I'm going to go help out in the kitchen, but you can ask around and see if some of the Heroes would be willing to help." She started walking away, waving. "I'll see you two at dinner!"

(Yes, I hear the question you might not have even thought of!

Throughout the story, I will be dropping hints about who Alfonse's love is. At the end of the story, I'll reveal who it is. I'm interested to hear ya'll think it is before then, though! I want to know how obvious it is XP)


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner was just as enjoyable as he thought it would be. Somehow everyone was able to have a group conversation though, and they all enjoyed their time together. They shared stories and laughed; Sharena told a fair amount of over-fantasized adventures, characterized by "the evil king," "the prince," "the princess," "their friend," and—probably the most obvious title of them all that reflected her poor naming skills— "the warrior from Merchantia." No one visibly seemed to connect the dots, either.

Alfonse was a bit surprised when Anna came in just as they were all finishing up. She announced her absence though kept her reasons simple—there was no mention of the scouts, nor where she was going, just the part where there was something she needed to do. Then giving an estimate of how long she'd been gone and making sure everyone was on the same page, she left again.

Eventually Sharena let him leave, thanking him for actually staying as long as he had. Alfonse went to his room and let this eventful day come to a close.

….

The next morning was fairly quiet. He assumed Anna had already left and went downstairs.

"Oh, Alfonse," Fauna greeted when he passed the grand hall. She looked like she'd been cleaning—her brown hair was up in a messy bun, a cloth and a bucket of water sat beside her, and the room looked noticeably cleaner than it was last night. "Almost everyone is outside enjoying the snow. I think Sharena went back to the—other, I guess—castle, though."

"And she went alone, didn't she?" He couldn't stop his sister from leaving if she wanted to, but that didn't mean he liked it when she went by herself.

Fauna nodded. "As far as I know she just took her lance. I would've gone with her, but then I realized with all the Heroes out I could clean better."

At least that was slightly better. Still not as good as being with someone but it was enough to hopefully keep him from getting too worried.

"So why aren't you with the others?" Alfonse asked, figuring he might as well try to have a conversation. He'd given up trying to not become friends with her anyway.

"Tons of reasons." Fauna answered simply. She still continued to clean as she talked. "I'm horrible aim, cleaning calms me, and also the mess the Heroes made yesterday was really starting to disturb me." She paused for a minute. "At least Anna will come back to a clean castle, right?"

"The whole castle?"

"If I'm fast enough I can get it done by tomorrow!"

"That is…a lot of cleaning. Maybe too much work by yourself."

Fauna gave him a weird look. "So says the prince that can and will stay up researching gods knows what for who knows how long and have that stack of fifty books back on their shelves in twenty-four hours."

"That's different though," Alfonse pointed out. "Cleaning an entire castle in two days takes up more energy than reading. And as the Summoner—"

"Stop right there." Fauna interrupted, frowning. "Let me remind you this was my life before becoming the literal savior of legends. I was a simple girl with a simple life of cook, clean, watch over kids, and the occasional outing with a friend." She sighed, which sounded close to wistfulness. "After time a whole castle in two days is nothing."

"Would you mind company?" When she looked at him like he'd said something wrong, he continued. "I've nothing better to do, and I'm not fond of the idea of joining the others."

She shook her head, and smiled. "I'd love that, actually! I just didn't think you'd offer; most of me can't help but picture you as this strong, intimidating loner with, well, uh…" Fauna chuckled sheepishly. "Abandonment issues." The oddest part is that she looked up at him like he was going to yell at her—well, like it wasn't partially true.

"Just start worrying when I start befriending Heroes." Alfonse knew he knew better than to do that. Then again that's what he thought for Fauna, even if she wasn't a run-of-the-mill Hero. "And remember it took me nearly a year to warm up to you for a reason."

"And I respect your reasons." Fauna returned with a nod. "Now can you carry the bucket for me?"

He nodded, walking over to her and picking up the bucket. It seemed oddly heavy despite its small size.

"Oh, I'm going to go through everyone's rooms as well if they let me." She added casually, getting up in a swift, graceful motion. "Do I have your permission for yours?"

Alfonse nodded. Admittedly everything he had that he'd be reluctant to show others was in the royal castle. Most things he had here were what he needed; he wouldn't put it past some of the Heroes here to snoop around his stuff anyway.

She gestured for him to follow her as she began walking. "Alright! Let's get this place cleaned!"

(Fun fact: just for this chapter, I looked up "abandonment issues." In the one article I read, at least 70% of it summed up Alfonse. You're welcome.)


	4. Paralogue 1

(Yes I'm doing these too for "fun" little interludes. Generally they'll reveal a different side to the characters—coughcoughSharenacoughcough—and explain certain past events. They might also mention specific years.

Anyway, enjoy some awkward conversations between Sharena and Henriette.)

"Sharena! I thought you said you'd be busy, what with that Order of Heroes stuff."

Sharena gave her mother a little shrug, getting into the carriage. One of Henriette's guards closed the door and soon after the carriage started moving. "I thought we would. But Commander Anna is away for the next few days so there won't be any missions."

Henriette smiled. "Well give her my thanks. There's nothing I like more than spending time with my precious little daughter." She paused for a moment. "So how are the two of you doing? Staying safe, I hope?"

"Yes, Mother." Sharena answered simply. "We're both fine. Though Alfonse is doing Alfonse-y things again…"

"I heard he was at the library earlier," Henriette remarked. "He's not making a habit out of it again, is he?" She shook her head. "I'll have to catch him next time. I'd hate to see either of you like that again."

Strong words coming from the woman who'd once told Sharena there was nothing they could do to prevent it; to sit it out and hope. "It's fine, really. We talked and he apologized." Kind of.

"So what about your other friend?" Henriette seemed to think for a moment. "Fauna."

"She's doing fine too." She replied, smiling. "You should taste her cooking! She makes the best cakes. OH! And she doesn't even make a mess. I still don't know how she does it."

Henriette giggled at Sharena's excitement. "Then you must invite her over to the castle sometime. I'm sure everyone would enjoy it."

She decided not to point out how Fauna technically slept in Zacharias's old room in the royal castle; then again the three of them were normally gone by the time everyone else woke up. It was kind of hard to live unnoticed in a place where all but one of the residents didn't like them, after all.

"I'm glad you were able to come along," Henriette told her when there was a minute of silence. "They've been asking about you, you know. Whenever I visit they ask if I know how you're doing. They'll be happy to see you."

And that was one reason why Sharena had been a little reluctant to come along. None of Henriette's friends had seen her since she'd joined the order nearly six years ago. She was likely going to hear "You've grown so much!" and remarks similar to "I can't believe you've been there so long" but in a manner they thought she wouldn't notice. Most of them probably still thought Zacharias was with them.

"The feeling would be neutral," Sharena half-lied. She would be happy making them happy—it was their questions that made her not want to go. And gods forbid she, their perfect little sunshine princess child, tell them "no."

Henriette kept them in constant conversation. The same subject popped up multiple times, generally cycling back to the Order in one way or another. Sharena just answered her mother's questions, explained when needed, and laughed on cue.

Then they spent the rest of the afternoon with Henriette's friends. Sharena had been right in her prediction of the evening, though at points she was actually happy she was there. One of them had stated that she "was turning into a fine young lady" which she chose to ignore, and she tried to hide how surprised she was when another asked about Alfonse.

It was dark when the two of them came back and even darker by the time Sharena grabbed her lance and left. Years of following the imaginary trail between the two castles led her safely back to where she had begun her day.

Alfonse and Fauna seemed to have been having a conversation before she came in.

"I was beginning to wonder when you'd come back." Alfonse greeted when he noticed her.

"Not very fond of me disappearing, huh?" Sharena returned, a lot more bitter than what she had intended. She sighed. "Sorry. Mother just asked if I'd like to accompany her when she visited her friends." She didn't give either of them a time to respond before she started walking away.

"What was that about..?" Fauna asked quietly after a minute or two.

Sharena stopped to hear Alfonse's answer.

"She's probably told you by now," Alfonse began. "When we were younger, I was always off doing something else. After a while my studies and obligations as prince meant we wouldn't see each other anywhere from a few days to several months, even then it was normally something as simple as passing each other in the hallway. Sharena never liked that; she'd get upset every time I'd leave for long enough. She doesn't like being reminded of that time, either. I can only assume its why she doesn't like it even now."

She took a moment to be glad she had a brother like Alfonse. Even when he got annoying and generally being a kind-of-jerk— at least he acknowledged when he did something dumb. Then Sharena kept walking to her room.


	5. Chapter 4

Anna came back only a day later than her prediction. She'd called the three of them to a meeting, and soon enough they were all there. Alfonse hoped—just for a moment—that she had found something useful. He was at least grateful she hadn't started pacing yet. She looked a bit more annoyed than worried, which he decided to take as a good sign.

"Did it go well?" Fauna prompted worriedly.

"No one's seen the scouts, and they weren't the only ones to go missing." Anna responded, shaking her head and frowning. "From what I was told people have been disappearing from both kingdoms—soldiers, merchants…whole families, too. I was hoping this was just Embla trying to provoke us. I had to be proven wrong." She paused for a moment. "Some of the locals spoke about a legend that apparently explained it; told me 'all is well as long as the beasts are fed' and described a world I've never heard of before."

Alfonse tried to figure out where that sounded familiar from. He didn't remember reading it, yet despite how limited it made the selection he couldn't think of where else he would've heard it. "Can you tell me what they said?"

"Very little of what they said actually made sense to me, but if you think you can understand it…" Anna began with a little shrug. "Something about a place of nightmares. Every couple thousand years or so they ravage a different world. Legend says there's this person that escaped them that waits to guide whoever is—their words not mine—stupid enough to face them."

His frown was all Anna needed to see before she continued.

"I'm tasking the two of you to go to the royal castle and see what you can find at the library there." Anna instructed, nodding to Alfonse and Sharena. "With any luck you'll find something." She looked over at Fauna. "Put that cloak of yours back on and get to work." Then she turned to all three of them. "Good luck."

Fauna was the first to leave. Next Sharena declared she'd prepare to their trip back home and left as well. Alfonse was about to join them until he felt Anna's hand on his shoulder.

"If I may have a word," she said.

He turned to her. "Yes, Commander?"

Apparently he looked worried, if the way she started explaining was any indication. "It's nothing serious, I swear. At least I don't think it is." Anna then pulled out a letter and handed it to him. "While I was out I ran into Zacharias. He asked me to give this to you."

"H-he did?" Alfonse asked, a little shocked. He looked down at the letter—which was really just a piece of paper folded in half—and couldn't help but smile. If only they could've actually talked to each other. But just holding proof that his friend was still doing well would suffice.

"Mhm. And whatever he wrote he didn't want anyone else but you reading." She gestured for him to unfold the letter.

Alfonse unfolded it, and wasn't nearly as surprised as he probably should've been to see it was written in Old Askran. He didn't even question when or how Zacharias learned how to write it. It made his heart race a little wondering what it said. Knowing now wasn't the time to find out, he folded it back and promised himself to look later.

Then a thought occurred to him. "Wait, were you planning on reading it?"

Anna nodded. She showed no sign of feeling guilty at all. "As commander I've got to make sure he's not trying to manipulate you—after all he did lie to us for years, and I know the two of you would do nearly anything he asked just because he said it."

"Zacharias is our friend. He'd never do anything like that." Alfonse reminded her firmly, hurt at the fact she'd even suggest something like that.

"Your friend. Not mine." Anna returned with a stern frown. "He betrayed my trust and could've gotten you killed. Not to mention he inadvertently nearly caused the end of the Order with his careless actions instead of communicating." She sighed. "Someone's got to be the reasonable one here. That includes taking everything into consideration. There's just too much facts to ignore that possibility."

She gave him a pat on the shoulder when she passed him, giving him one last unreadable glance before leaving him in his thoughts.

Alfonse sighed, looking down at the letter for a moment before making his leave too. He went to his room, put the letter away, grabbed his sword and went to join Sharena at the courtyard. Together they walked to the royal castle in silence.

He was left in his own thoughts, reflecting on what had been said and scolding himself. He should be able to understand Anna's concern, respect her decision, and take caution when interacting with Zacharias. But he couldn't get himself to see his old friend the way she did. He knew he should know better than to be that foolish. A part of him just couldn't bring himself to the thought of turning the friend he'd learned so much from—experienced the worlds with—into the antagonist.

He just had to believe there was someone else more worthy of that position, and hope that one day…they'd be a team again.

(Yes I will admit Anna *might* be over-exaggerating a little...but this was a point I wanted to show.)


	6. Chapter 5

"OH! Alfonse, this one has pictures!" Sharena shouted from the first floor of the library.

Alfonse glanced over the railing to look at his sister. "But is it one of the ones I told you to get..?"

She just looked up at him. "Which ones were that again?"

He groaned. "Three rows from where you're standing, to the far left of the shelf on your right, there should be—"

"Hey did you know these books are in here wrong?" And she wasn't even listening to him. "I don't know how you know where anything is here! Is there like some secret pattern or something?"

It was like she was trying to annoy him. All this was doing was reminding Alfonse why he never took Sharena with him when he did this kind of stuff; it was nearly impossible to focus and actually do something with her constant talking. "They're sorted in alphabetical order by the first few letters of the author's first name." He explained to her in the simplest words he could think of.

"Ooooooooooooooooooh. That still doesn't make any sense." Sharena declared, wandering over to where he actually asked her to go. After staring at the selection for a moment, she pulled out one of the books and waved it in the air. "Is it this one? There's a big word on it!"

"But what does it say?" He prompted.

"I dunno," she answered with a shrug. "It doesn't even look like a real word."

He blinked, taking a deep breath before continuing. "Just bring it over here." Sharena nodded and walked across the room and up the stairs to where he was. He took the book from her and waved her off again. "Now there should be another over—"

The door closest to them swung open. "There the two of you are! I was hoping you'd be here."

Oh gods please no.

Sharena gave their mother a bright smile. Alfonse resisted his growing urge to either give them a very deep sigh or just walk away without a word.

Henriette returned her daughter's smile for one of her own, before seeming to notice Alfonse. Immediately she went to hug her eldest child. "You've grown so much since the last time I saw you! How long has it been? You've been taking good care of your sister, right?"

Alfonse tried really hard not to shove the queen off of him. He heard Sharena's muffled laughter and wished he was at a better position to glare at her. "Of course, Mother."

"You need to stop growing." Henriette remarked as if he hadn't said anything. "Both of you are going to be taller than me. I'm not prepared to be the shortest again."

She was talking to him like he was still a child instead of a technically-adult. It was a bit embarrassing. He could only assume it took years to gain a tolerance to their mother's trying-but-not-helping-anything actions, if the way Sharena interacted with her was any indication.

"Well luckily you won't be seeing me often enough to acknowledge that…" he muttered, silently praying she'd let go of him soon. "Mother, please—we have things we need to get done."

Henriette backed away after that. "Oh, did I interrupt something important?"

"Yes." Alfonse replied bluntly, unable to stop himself. "Commander Anna asked us—"

"Wait a moment, dear." She said, looking over him and frowning. "Did you really walk miles to get here in those?" Henriette waved at their clothes in a concerned manner. "You must be freezing."

"Well they're a lot warmer than they might seem." He told her simply, growing a bit impatient. He decided to just try to get to the point. "Is there any particular reason you're here or are you just here to tell us things we already know?"

"Alfonse!" Sharena scolded, frowning. "That's not nice!"

He chose to ignore her like how he swore both of them constantly ignored him.

Henriette gave him a little frown. "I was getting there." She did a little gesture, and a guard—who had apparently been just outside the door—handed her a little bag. She dug through it and pulled out what looked like some sort of invitation. There was even a little seal that marked it as being sent from a noble house. "A few nobles are hosting an early new year's celebration and invited you, your sister, and your two friends from the Order of Heroes—Anna and Fauna."

Alfonse just stared at her. "You've got to be kidding." Sharena stepped a bit closer to him and whacked him. When he glared at her, she gave him a "you know what you did" look.

Henriette smiled. "It's nice to see you're keeping each other in check." She then seemed to remember the actual subject, and continued. "Don't worry; they really did invite you. I'm just the messenger. They said they'd be thrilled to have the three people who forged the group that took the whole kingdom by surprise there. Oh, and the Summoner. I promise there won't be any overreacting."

Not overreacting didn't mean treating them like normal people. Precious few nobles—or anyone of any notable class, for that matter—saw the Order as anything more than a bunch of naïve children. It was unlikely everyone that would be there would be as welcoming to them as the host.

"May I see the invitation, Mother?" Sharena asked. Henriette nodded and gave it to her, and she seemed to skim through it. "We'll ask Commander Anna about it," she promised their mother with a little nod and smile.

That seemed to be enough for Henriette. She spent a bit more time talking to them before leaving the two of them to their search.

(Just a friendly reminder that Sharena never needed to use a library...she had a brother who knew virtually everything, and unless it had tons of pictures, she doesn't read books at all anyway _)


	7. Chapter 6

As Sharena explained their conversation with Henriette to the commander, Anna was staring at the map and probably not even completely listening. It was late and he was exhausted after a long day of answering his sister's pointless and obvious questions, but Alfonse stayed anyway and to give her the actual report of their findings—which was, suffice to say, none.

"…and here's the invitation." Sharena finished as she handed the invitation to Anna.

Anna didn't even pretend to look at it. "You know we've got way more important things to do than attend some noble's party, right? In case you haven't been paying attention, we're kind of dealing with missing people here."

Sharena muttered something that sounded like "And you yell at me for not reading something first." She sighed. "The host knows tons of stuff about old legends. Even most of the ones that came from Embla. He's more likely to tell us something quicker than searching the whole royal library would." She did have a point, at least.

"And you know this how..?" Anna didn't sound surprised. Just skeptical.

"I spent the first eleven years of my life with Mother and her friends," Sharena explained. "Quite honestly, they're the only noble people I know personally. Also he told really good stories and I never forget a good storyteller."

"Suppose he does know something," Anna began. She glanced over at the siblings. "How the hell are we going to look even remotely presentable to them? Because I'm pretty sure they're not looking for armor and I doubt either of you fit any of the fancy stuff you had years ago. So unless your mother believes in early-and-even-earlier birthday presents and 'because I'm queen' giftbombing, we're not going anywhere." She shrugged, turning her gaze back to the map. "I may be an Anna but it's still hard to barter with stuff you don't have."

For a second Alfonse wondered why she seemed to care—he knew that Anna would do whatever she felt right, no matter how informal and mildly disrespectful it might be. Then he reminded himself of who she was probably actually worried about here: the two of them, both by representing their kingdom and how it would reflect back on the Order. Having the prince walk in looking like he didn't understand the phrase "dress code" would be concerning, and knowing the people of Askr they'll find some way to pin it on the Order.

"Well I mean we could try," Sharena remarked. "All we'll need to do is ask. Mother would just be happy that we're coming." She paused. "What do you think Fauna would like?"

"Oh, Fauna's not coming." Anna answered without much delay. "On a normal day, we'll be lucky to make it through the night without having to leave. By now a specific someone most likely already knows about all of this and is off telling that other specific someone, which won't help either of us in the end. I don't like the idea of her being alone here with the Heroes, but she's got enough experience to know what to do if something went wrong."

When Sharena frowned disapprovingly, Alfonse sighed. "She's right, Sharena. Someone reliable needs to stay here should anyone get any ideas." He remembered what Fauna had told him the day he helped her clean the castle. "Fauna doesn't even like being around so many nobles. Why force someone to go someplace they don't want to be in the first place?" There was already one person who foresaw being miserable while they were there, really there didn't need to be a second.

"Well shouldn't she have a say in this anyway?" Sharena asked. At this point he wasn't quite sure why she was still trying.

Anna turned to them and patted Sharena on the head. "You go do that. Just don't get too upset when she says no." She walked past them. "Everyone will still be here tomorrow morning. And as long as I have a say in it, no one's going anywhere."

Sharena looked like she wanted to protest, but only watched as the commander went to the door.

"If you really want to then we can discuss it later," Anna continued. "But not now. Just get some rest, both of you—we've got a long day ahead of us." With that she waved and left the room.

Alfonse went to join her. He stopped when he realized Sharena wasn't following. "Coming?" She was starting to worry him. This wasn't something she'd normally do, and since he found it unlikely she'd still be upset with him in one way or another, he couldn't figure out why she was like this.

"Yeah," Sharena answered after a short pause.

She didn't say anything else while they walked down the halls. When they reached the doors that marked their separate rooms, they bid each other good night and went their separate ways.

(Yeaaaah, this one's a shorter chapter. But it was a nice place to end off.

Also you can now know Sharena's age. Through math. Later I plan mentioning the—nearly exact—age difference between her and Alfonse.)


	8. Chapter 7

Anna kept the whole Order busy—everyone seemed to have been given a list of things to do, and she'd sent out several groups of Heroes to other worlds. Around lunch everyone took a short break for some cookies, then went back to their various tasks.

Alfonse saw Sharena once, as she helped a few Heroes, but never found the moment to ask her about the night before. All he knew was that something was clearly bothering her; the fact he only knew that much bothered him. And since she didn't bring it up to him herself (though he wasn't even sure if she noticed he was there), he'd just have to wait for an answer.

On the morning before the noble's party, Anna told the two of them to get ready, join Henriette, and that she'd see them there. While they prepared, Sharena had explained to Alfonse that she'd informed their mother of their arrival through letter a couple days before so that everything would be prepared. Then after getting dressed and complimented several times by Henriette, remarking how cute they looked together and how it reminded her of when they were little, they set off.

As she had promised, they saw Anna there. She definitely didn't notice—or didn't care for—the weird look many of the nobles gave her and the odd sound Henriette made when she saw her. Sharena seemed completely unaware of it as well, whereas Alfonse was ready to walk off. Anna just responded to them with "You're not getting me in that." while pointing at Sharena's dress.

The three of them shortly talked before Anna went to talk with the host.

Sharena smiled at Alfonse and tilted her head over to the large selection of sweets. "While she's doing that, let's go see if they have anything good," she suggested happily. "You're coming with me because I'm not letting you find a quiet corner and brood."

He just agreed and followed her.

"Don't think I'm not making you eat something." Sharena continued as she stared at their options. "I know you didn't eat since we went to the castle." That was correct, actually—they had eaten before they left, but Alfonse simply hadn't been hungry for lunch and figured he could eat when they got back. "Hey, these cookies have raisins in them… and so do the muffins. Who put raisins in these instead of chocolate chips?!"

She turned to him and handed him a pastry. "Tell me what the filling is."

Alfonse reluctantly took it and took a bite. He shrugged. "Normal filling?" Sharena frowned at him in response. "Look I'm not the one who'd 'raid' the kitchen with Mother every weekend. If it wasn't served—and if I even had dessert that night—then I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference."

"Oh right. That." She had apparently forgotten about that and was clearly not happy to remember it. "Well, is it still good?"

He nodded, not mentioning he probably wasn't the best to judge that either. Sharena gave him a bit more things to try out, eating several herself, before she guided him to a quieter area.

"Hey, Alfonse?" Sharena began. She rested her head on his shoulder, staring out at the other guests. "Be honest. When was the last time we were together during an event like this?'

"I…don't know," he confessed. "My first guess would be during that party Mother had insisted on throwing for your birthday, but…I didn't even spend that time with you." Thinking back on it now, he couldn't remember even talking to her besides the normal "Father wants me to do this so no" argument that was very common at the time.

Sharena sighed. "Do you ever wonder…if he did it on purpose?"

"Is this really the best line of conversation to be having here?" Alfonse asked with a small wave to the people around them.

"Everyone here should be minding their own business," she remarked simply. "Please just answer my question."

"Alright. I'll be honest…not at all." She looked at him when he said this, but he wasn't done. "A part of me knew it from the very beginning. There was a short time I remember where the four of us acted like an actual family. But you were admittedly still young then and he could excuse your behavior more easily." He paused. "Suffice to say it wasn't just the two of us that grew apart as years passed."

"I…can't remember any of that." Her voice only seemed to be getting quieter. "Were we really all happy at one point?" He could only imagine how impossible this might sound to her—the closest thing to family interactions they'd done was eat dinner together, even then it was awkward silence and a kind of tension words couldn't describe.

"Really I don't expect you to; you were two, maybe three, years old at that point. I'm a bit surprised I still remember it." Alfonse told her gently. "It sounds a bit hard to believe, but it's true. We'd go on picnics, close to that little river we met Commander Anna at. Mother would make us flower crowns while Father told us stories. We would stay out for hours. After we ate, you and I chased butterflies while Mother and Father talked. You used to get so upset when we had to leave, even if you were practically about to fall asleep."

Sharena smiled a bit. "You? Chasing butterflies?" She snorted.

And he couldn't help but smile too.

(Haha backstory-ing!)


	9. Chapter 8

They stayed for a few more hours and went home with their mother. The next morning Alfonse and Sharena walked in silence to the Order's castle.

"…they didn't do anything so I didn't do anything." Fauna was explaining as they entered. She must have been reporting what happened while the others were at the party, since Anna was listening with her arms crossed and not looking very pleased.

"But what idiot decides to risk their fu—" Anna cut herself off when she realized the other two were there. "Freakin. What idiot decides to risk their freakin lives just to stand by the gate for an hour?"

"I didn't say they just stood there," Fauna pointed out. "I said they didn't do anything." She noticed them as well and waved. "Good morning!"

"Fine, then what did they do besides stand there?" Anna asked, waving them in. "It's about time you two got here. Apparently we had a visitor from our favorite empire last night. Fauna was just about to explain how he did nothing but didn't just stand around."

Fauna frowned. "They weren't obviously trying to break in or scale the walls or do whatever is apparently a normal castle-raiding technique is. And it was just one person. They even knocked."

"They knocked." Anna repeated in an unamused, blunt tone. "Scratch my first question. Why the hell does someone knock on the gate of their kingdom's worst enemy?"

"Well none of us are Veronica so I guess we'll never know." Fauna said with a little shrug. She pulled out a a piece of paper and handed it to Anna. "If you're done questioning how dumb the person might've been, they left this."

Anna took the paper from her and read it. "Why am I not surprised." She said dully. "It's from Zacharias. And this time he wants us to go—specifically stating unarmed—to the Emblian border. If that's not some form of a trap then I don't know what is."

"Zacharias would never do that." Sharena pointed out. Alfonse bit back a statement of his own.

"You know I had the exact same conversation with your brother a few days ago," Anna remarked. "Can we actually think about this for a minute? He's the prince of Embla. That makes him Veronica's brother. She knows that he has a strong connection with the two of you. And if you haven't noticed, Embla's got this thing for manipulating people. Connecting any dots yet?"

"I think I am but then again I wish I wasn't." Sharena answered, frowning.

Alfonse sighed. "She's saying we shouldn't put so much faith in him."

"Oh so you were listening. Good." Anna nodded. "I thought I'd have to remind you."

"But—"

"Apparently you weren't thinking enough." Anna interrupted Sharena rather quickly. "Say the four of us went like the letter tells us to, but brought our weapons. Two good fighters, an iffy one, and just another body; sounds reasonable, right?"

"Er, I can actually do magic if you'd let me have a tome…" Fauna muttered.

Sharena just glared at Anna.

Anna still continued as if she didn't notice either of them. "Keep in mind we're going pretty close to the border. It wouldn't be hard—even if it wasn't intentional—to stage an attack. Remember it would've taken us at least two days to get there, and it would be dark by the time we arrived. We won't stand much of a chance should we run into Emblian soldiers."

"Can't we just assume he'd keep his word?" Sharena asked.

"I wish we could." Anna said, shaking her head. "There's too much facts to just ignore the possibility. I won't risk the chance he's lying. This Order can't afford to lose any of you." She seemed to leave something unsaid, and glanced over at the paper. "Though I got to hand it to him, he knows how to make a tempting offer."

Alfonse stepped a bit closer. "Can I see it?"

Anna shrugged, giving him an odd look. "Go ahead." She handed him the paper.

He read it over only once. It was short and simple, reading: "There's someone waiting for you who could help with your case—someone who shares a similar goal to you. I request you meet with her at the border, unarmed, and just the four of you. Rest assured she'd be without weapons as well." Then it ended off with the name "Zacharias" in the lower corner.

"I think we can trust him." Alfonse declared shortly after. He noticed Anna's frown and continued. "Yes, he's technically our enemy and has a clear record on why we shouldn't trust him. But he's also helped us countless times in the past. Need I remind you, were it not for Zacharias, Fauna wouldn't be here and we'd be far too many steps behind Embla."

"Yeah, and he's been playing both sides since he left," Anna stated. "He didn't make up his damn mind on who he's fighting with and who he's fighting against. I don't even know if that's petty or just sad."

"How much of what you're saying is anything more than a personal bias about someone you didn't even know?" Alfonse returned coolly.

Anna glared at him and Sharena looked over at her brother with a "what the heck do you think you're doing" look.

Fauna spoke up before anyone else could say anything. "I'm just going to throw this out here because I'd really rather not see where this goes… What if we vote on it? Whichever has the most is what we do. No hard feelings."

(Yes, Anna will not curse in front of Sharena for the same reason no one curses in front of little kids. Don't ask why though. And yes, Fauna is canonically a mage, nor does she even understand the concept of raiding castles.

On a no-where-near-related note, you know the song Try Everything that's played during a movie called Zootopia? Well, my brain thought of, instead of "try" the singer said "screw." Try listening to the song now while imagining it being called "Screw Everything" instead.)


	10. Chapter 9

There was two votes for going, one for not believing anything Zacharias had said, and one for undecided. Anna grumbled about how it wasn't a fair vote to begin with, their trust in him would get them killed one day, and "you blame me for personal bias." She quickly accepted the defeat, though, and sent the three of them to get what they'd need for the trip.

Then after a few warm coats, four small tents, supplies, and instructions on what to do while they're gone, they set off. They were starting on their third day; not quite as quickly as Anna had wanted, but was the more reasonable time considering.

"…and then she banned me from having glitter." Sharena finished. She'd spent the last hour telling Fauna things they'd done in the past, finally landing on the story of one winter festival. "Isn't that right, Commander?"

"And that didn't even stop you." Anna responded, sighing. "You somehow found it and preceded to throw glitter everywhere."

Sharena laughed. "Somehow? I asked Mother. Like what I do every other time you ban me from something."

"Wait. How much did Anna ban you from..?" Fauna asked with an amused grin.

"Glitter, confetti, sprinkles, three or more cupcakes in a single day, and several craft materials besides scissors, glue, and paper." Alfonse answered simply. "And I think I'm still missing some."

"Double chocolate chip cookies were definitely on that list at one point," Anna added. "Believe me, Fauna—you don't want to see the horror that's Sharena on a sugar rush."

"I can only imagine." Fauna said, giving them a little laugh of her own.

They fell into silence as they reached their destination.

In front of them stood a horse and its rider—albeit rather short compared to their steed. A large, furry cloak was wrapped around them and kept them both undoubtably warm and their face hidden. No one moved until they spoke.

"I thought you'd never come."

It only took a minute to recognize that voice.

"Veronica?!" Anna stepped back to stand closer to the other three.

"Oh, did he not tell you?" Veronica asked teasingly. "He's always leaving out those little details, isn't he?" She paused, seemingly noticing their weapons. "I see you lacked to follow his instructions. But whatever puts your mind at ease, I suppose."

Anna frowned. Alfonse put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "There's no need to get hostile," he reminded the commander gently. He glanced over at Veronica. "We share a common goal, even if her reasons for doing so might be different from ours. She may also be our enemy, but right now she's an ally."

"Gods I hate it when you're right," Anna sighed.

"At least one of you are smart," Veronica remarked. "Regrettably I can see why he likes you."

Alfonse tried really hard to make sure he didn't show anything. Judging by Sharena's muffled laughter, Veronica's bitter snort, and Anna's eye roll, he didn't hid it very well. Fauna just stood there like she didn't understand what had happened.

"Anyway," Veronica continued casually. She pulled the reins to get the horse a bit closer to them. "It has been brought to my attention of the current…state…of things. As per Bruno's request, I will be accompanying you." Her voice got duller and bored as she spoke. "In return I ask for your protection during our travels, and at the end continue as if this horrid nightmare never happened.

"You want me to believe you don't have a single means of defending yourself?" Anna asked, both in a skeptical and slightly-concerned manner. After all, what was the practical purpose of having Embla's ruler unarmed in Askr?

"Yes, actually." Veronica replied bluntly. "As much as I hate to admit it, I need to rely on the four of you to ensure my wellbeing. Really all you need to do is not get me killed. It shouldn't be that hard. You've kept the obnoxious blonde one alive this long."

"Hey!" Sharena said, frowning. "I'm not even completely blonde!"

Veronica completely ignored her. "You'd lose more than you'd gain from it, too. I know how to end this. When it's done, I'm sure we'll all happily pick up where we left off on our attempt to murder one another. But letting me die, now, well…that would be rather troublesome, wouldn't it?"

"I hate you." Anna declared.

"The feeling's neutral." Veronica returned. "Let's start before it gets dark. I brought everything I need and I presume you've brought enough with you as well." She tugged on the reins and gestured for the others to follow her.

Anna waved to signal them to listen to Veronica. "But let's get this straight, I'm the boss here. You're playing by my rules or you aren't playing at all."

"Don't like feeling like your superiority is being threatened?" Veronica responded off-handedly. "Believe me I don't care about that. Just like you, I've got my own people to take care of."

(A: yeeeaaaah I over fantasize how quickly people can move.

B: for reference 'cause I'm bad at explaining, Veronica looks like Brave Princess Veronica plus a cloak and minus her halo-crown thingie.)


	11. Paralogue 2

Sharena was beginning to understand what it felt like to be prey.

They'd made camp not far from a village. Anna had taken Fauna there since they weren't particularly prepared supply-wise, and Alfonse was setting up the tents. That left Sharena and Veronica alone together.

Veronica had pulled down her hood a while ago, and now absently tore up a dead leaf while staring at Sharena. It would've been disturbing normally—but this was getting creepy and was giving her the feeling she's being hunted at this point.

"Can you…maybe please stop staring at me like that..?" Sharena asked gently, shifting uncomfortably.

"No." Veronica answered simply. She didn't even move.

"Then can you at least tell me why you're staring at me?" It might not make her feel any better, but she'd rather know then be guessing.

"I'm trying to figure out why my brother likes you." Veronica replied as if it was obvious. "I get the prince—both our brothers share several similarities, right down to their stupid hope for peace and their interest in keeping us safe. But you… he couldn't have even seen a bit of me in you. Even when we were little, I was never as stupid as you were."

Sharena stayed silent.

Veronica continued. "I don't even know how he dealt with you for five years."

"You're purposely trying to mess with me, aren't you." That wasn't a question. Sharena sighed, knowing it probably won't end soon.

"Actually, I'm just honestly trying to understand you." Veronica replied genuinely, tilting her head. "As you can imagine, kindness and over-enthusiasm doesn't go very far in Embla. There was only one woman I knew that lived to adulthood with that kind of attitude…and, well, she didn't make it much further."

It was hard to tell if Veronica was lying or not. Generally her voice stayed dull and flat; most of the time her expression stayed unreadable. At times like this it just made Sharena more uneasy to be the one Veronica was talking to.

"Can you 'try to understand me' without staring?"

Veronica gave her a bemused look. "A little grumpy, I presume?"

"Please just shut up." Sharena answered quickly. She wasn't about to just tell their not-right-now-but-will-be-again-soon enemy why she was being like this. She hadn't even worked up the courage to tell Alfonse yet; then again she knew what his response would probably be and she didn't like it.

"You know, the only thing I can seem to do is hate you," Veronica remarked casually. "You've always had someone there to help you. You were never alone…that is, not in the sense I was. Most of your problems were solved for you. It's no wonder which one of us is mentally older than the other."

"So says the person who still plays with dolls!" Sharena shot back without much thought. If she knew walking away would be an option, she'd totally do that.

Veronica looked amused. "Last I heard, your rooms are full of plush toys and your favorite is one named 'Mr. Fluffy BunBun.' You have the mental capacity of an eight-year-old child, and have you not heard yourself talk to your brother recently?"

"Okay but that's—" she stopped herself. Wait a minute, why was she even trying? "ALFONSE! VERONICA'S BEING MEAN TO ME!"

There was a sound of something falling and someone cursing from the direction of the camp. A moment later she heard Alfonse ask, "Is she trying to kill you?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then you'll be fine."

All the while Veronica was smiling. "You were saying?"

"Oh, shush." Sharena glanced back over to Veronica, a bit concerned at what she saw. "Uh, Veronica? Your nose is bleeding."

Clearly confused, Veronica put her finger above her lip. An—almost pained—expression flashed across her face. "Oh gods, not this again…" She quickly got up, not even looking at Sharena. "If the others ask, I'll be back soon. Just…don't come after me. Really it's of all of our best interests."

Then she quickly walked into the forest around them.

Sharena watched her go, wondering what that was about. Either way, she hoped Veronica got back before Anna did—the two of them already weren't very happy around each other (not like Sharena was, either), if Anna heard Veronica just randomly left, well…Sharena just hoped she wouldn't be there to hear it.

She decided she'd help Alfonse and went to join him.

(Oh jeez, uh...I'm going to need more stories just to explain the other half—the Emblian one—of this AU...because that's probably not going to be explained in this story...

And yes, Veronica said "Mr. Fluffy BunBun" with a straight face. Telling that scene to my friend, however, I got to "BunBun" and started laughing so hard I needed to just skip to the next word.)


	12. Chapter 10

Alfonse didn't question Veronica's absence for the next few hours and even had a guess on why she left. Him and Sharena worked together to cover for her, though, when Anna and Fauna came back. Luckily Veronica came back before the commander could get too suspicious, and the five of them ate in silence. After that they went to their separate tents to get some rest.

He woke up to the sound of soft, melodic humming. It took him a moment to realize it must be the middle of the night, and yet another to realize who was humming and what the song was. He put on his coat and went to see why is sister was up this late.

Sharena was leaning against one of the trees, completely unaware of his presence. Alfonse felt a little bad to disrupt her serenity, but his curiosity and general concern got the better of him.

"Sharena?"

She jumped. "A-Alfonse?! I didn't think you were up."

"I could say the same for you," Alfonse remarked. "I'm sorry to interrupt but…it's late, and we need to be ready pretty early. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

She sighed, glancing up at him and then back at the ground. Well, that wasn't a very good sign. "I can't sleep." Sharena admitted with a sheepish chuckle. "Not like I would've actually slept anyway…"

"What?" Alfonse asked worriedly.

"Alright, so…" She seemed to need to plan her words before continuing. "I haven't been completely honest with you. For the past two weeks I haven't really been sleeping well. But not, like, tossing and turning kind of not sleeping well. More like…nightmares and feeling like I didn't sleep at all."

She didn't seem to like admitting it, but it made sense to Alfonse and was glad she was telling him. "That's what's been bothering you, isn't it?"

Sharena nodded. "Am I really that obvious?"

"You had the Heroes fooled," he answered with a shrug. "But nothing gets past your big brother."

"Aw, thanks." She said, smiling.

Alfonse took a step closer. "One more question." She immediately frowned again. "You haven't told her yet, have you?"

"No! Of course not!" That was a rather quick response.

He sighed. "She'll want to hear this. We are dealing with a world of nightmares here, there's a chance—"

"I said no!" Her voice cracked and she seemed to be getting distressed. "She's going to insist I go back home and wait. I'm done waiting for you to come back. I'm done feeling helpless and useless. I'm done trying to stay happy around the Heroes when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry, because gods forbid our precious little Sharena have any other emotions."

He knew he couldn't argue if she's made up her mind. He understood where her words were coming from, and it even made him consider if he'd helped give her that idea. Alfonse didn't like seeing his sister like this. "Sharena…" he didn't know what else to say.

"Please. Please don't tell her." Sharena continued in a near-whisper. "I'm not a little girl anymore. I want to stay with you—I want to help. Born bound to a crown with a predetermined fate…and all that I could ever want now that we can choose for ourselves is to actually have a say in something. Please…"

She looked up at him, and after a moment of thought, he nodded. "Alright. Just promise me you'll tell me these sorts of things sooner."

Sharena gave him a little smile. "Thanks." There was a sort of emptiness to her tone. She walked over to him and hugged him. "You're the best brother a girl could ask for. Really."

"Try to get some rest," he told her gently. "We've got a lot of walking ahead of us tomorrow."

"I'll try." She promised, stepping back. "Goodnight?" He nodded and she started walking back to her tent. Sharena looked over at him. "Hey, I'd love to see how Veronica reacts to that dream of yours. I bet that'll change her blank expression."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure she won't like it. At all." Alfonse corrected bluntly. Sharena wasn't going to let him live that down, was she?

"That's the point!" Sharena returned, waving. "But seriously though, I think she'll want to know."

"I think she'll want to kill me."

Sharena laughed. "I can see the family reunions now."

All he could imagine was everyone at each other's throats and someone dead in an hour. Only a better reason why it would never happen.

He watched her go to her tent. Shortly after he made his way back to his; soon getting lost in his own thoughts.

(That's one less thing on the list of stuff I need to explain! Went from normal, to yelling, to playful in a span of a few mintes, but that's kind of just Sharena in a way...)


	13. Chapter 11

The next morning Anna convinced Veronica to share what she knew. It wasn't much, besides where they needed to go and a few things they already knew. Anna confessed to not finding anything else out, as well, but it didn't come to a surprise to Alfonse since she'd never told them what she learned.

Sharena stayed close to him throughout the day, and the two of them made up the back of the group. The events of the night before showed to be nothing to her—then again if they were going to convince Anna everything was still fine, they'd need to make it look like it. Alfonse still wasn't completely happy with the idea, but if it was what must be done, it was what must be done.

Somehow they came to the topic of dumb excuses everyone else believed. Veronica seemed to have plenty of them.

"Then there was that one time I executed someone for having a stupid face," she continued casually. "Though they really did have a stupid face."

"Must be great having everyone believe everything you say." Sharena remarked.

"I could tell those idiots the moon was going to fall out of the sky and they'd believe me." Veronica replied with a sigh. "It does has it uses, though. Easier to control people when they don't question you."

"It's not like they're other human beings or anything…" Anna muttered.

Fauna seemed to take the hint it was time to change the subject. "So how long until we're there? Do you have an estimate?"

"Well if we keep this up, a week." She seemed to look up at the sky for a moment, though the hood hid most of her movement. "Then again if you're normally this slow and it snows like it looks like it's going to, it will take us longer." She paused. "What a wonderful coincidence that Xander expects as much and is running things like normal."

Anna frowned. "Oh, stop rubbing it in."

"Rubbing what in?"

Her question was answered by a growl.

"I will get out the water squirter." Fauna threatened stubbornly.

"Fauna, we're not cats." Anna reminded her dully.

"Yeah but it's gonna be cold," Fauna returned. "And I dunno about you, but I definitely wouldn't want to be squirted with cold water."

Anna snorted. "That's assuming it's not ice by now." She paused. "I doubt you even brought it with you. What practical use would it have anyway?"

"To squirt you with cold water when you're just about at someone's throat." Fauna answered matter-of-factly. "There's only one thing people hate more than being squirted with water: being told they can't have a cookie."

"Maybe to a child," Alfonse corrected with a shrug. "There's only one person I know that would get upset if she couldn't have a cookie." He glanced over at Sharena, and she returned it with a playful smirk. "Though I would be impressed if you brought it."

Anna looked over her shoulder at him. "Impressed?! That's a waste of space!"

"I think someone needs a nap." Fauna said like she was talking to someone much, much younger. "Do you need a nap, Commander?"

"Ha ha, over my dead body." Anna replied darkly.

Veronica laughed, though not pleasantly. "You know, with so many people looking up to you, you'd think you'd be smarter than to ignore the honest requests of others."

"You keep your gods damned mouth shut," Anna shot back. "In the end the only people that matter are the ones I'm protecting. I don't care about me as long as they're safe."

"I can back up that statement." Alfonse confirmed. "Both not listening and taking her role seriously. Believe me she's done some very stupid things before." It wasn't until a bit after Zacharias's disappearance Anna even slightly started considering her own wellbeing; and that took a lot of persuasion. To this day, she used the generalized excuse instead of the specific one he was certain existed.

"You won't do anyone any good with an attitude like that." Veronica pointed out. "I'm starting to wonder how that order of yours has made it this long."

"Really just shut up."

"Guys!" Fauna interrupted, stepping beside Anna. "I really don't want to, but…I will hit you with a snowball."

There was a moment of silence.

"Uh, Fauna…I don't think you're very good with threats…" Sharena informed her gently.

(Fauna needs to stop spending time with animals and little kids...)


	14. Chapter 12

Veronica's prediction was almost accurate; mostly because of snow, a bit because of the youngest three's apparent lack of endurance in the cold (Fauna was excusable, Veronica wasn't even walking like the rest of them were, and whatever disappointment there might've been for Sharena was passed off as just her not feeling well), and slightly because of Anna and Veronica's bickering, they were a few days late.

Very little of their time was spent in silence, and the other girls participated in one conversation that made Anna forget that she'd been arguing with Veronica long enough to argue that she wasn't short—despite a large amount of the Order was taller than her. Eventually she admitted to wishing both of the royal siblings didn't inherit their father's height, and how she was glad Fauna couldn't get any taller. Alfonse just stayed silent the whole time.

"We're here." Veronica announced dully, stopping in front of a portal.

"Empresses first," Anna said.

Veronica looked back at her. "I haven't even as much as touched any of you since we started, and believe me it's hard to not want to kill you. You still don't trust I'm not lying?"

"You're our enemy. Of course not." Anna returned simply, gesturing Veronica in. "Prove to me you aren't lying."

The Emblian muttered a curse before the horse went across to the other world. From that side, Veronica waved. "We don't have all month, you know."

Anna nodded, and soon after the four of them were inside. Veronica put down her hood, and for a minute Fauna looked back to where they'd entered.

"Um…guys…" the young Summoner began, gently pointing at the exit. Or, more specifically, where the exit had been.

"I didn't do it." Veronica stated bluntly. "Even if I did, I'd have nothing to gain by being stuck here. With you four, of all people." She nodded to Alfonse. "You're Askran royalty. Open it back up again."

"That would be great." Alfonse returned in false casualness. "If I knew how."

"You don't WHAT?!" Veronica asked disbelievingly, staring at him like he said he didn't understand something obvious.

"I don't know," he repeated.

Veronica sighed. "You're the heir to the Askran throne, and you don't even know how to use the abilities you have. Gods, I knew Askr was hopeless but I didn't think they were idiots too."

"It's not like being able to open portals would help Askr's situation any." Alfonse pointed out generally. At least that's how he always saw it. It was one of the only things he never even thought of questioning his father about.

"Well, it's not like closing portals helps Embla either but I know how to anyway." Veronica shot back. "It wouldn't need to be put into practice. Yet here you are telling me you weren't even given an explanation on how to use it?"

"Not in the slightest." He wasn't phased in the slightest about it, neither was Anna or Sharena. Fauna, on the other hand, didn't look very pleased but it was the first time she's heard this and it wasn't really the best time to know. "There was never a need. After all it's not like anyone plans to be stuck in some random world."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "The longer we continue this conversation the more I wonder how Askr has even lasted this long. Honor and tradition doesn't seem to be a problem for them anymore, either."

"So says the girl from the empire who deceived Askr by keeping the portals open." Anna remarked bitterly.

"We have our reasons. Good ones, at that." Veronica returned. "But I wonder who's really to blame for not checking sooner..?" Her words were returned with an glare from everyone but Fauna. She shrugged them off. "If we're going to waste our time arguing, at least let's spend it figuring out the rest of this mess."

They started walking again, this time Anna taking the lead. A silence settled, leaving everyone to their own thoughts.

Soon a fortress came into view. There was a short bit of debating on whether they should enter, but it ended with the mutual agreement that it was getting dark and there were in someplace completely unfamiliar.

Inside it just looked…abandoned. Ruined flags of a kingdom long gone lined the walls, though there wasn't any signs the residents left in a hurry. Everything sat in the same spot it had been when there was people here, he knew it. Even Anna didn't seem to like it; not as surprisingly, Fauna whimpered and Sharena stepped a little closer to Alfonse.

Veronica, the least bothered of them all apparently, dismounted from the horse—oddly not tying it to anything—and gestured inside. "Are we going in or are you too afraid of ghost stories?"

"Everyone stick together." Anna commanded, earning three nods and an eye roll. "Let's figure out how screwed we are."

(I seriously compared the heights of Anna, Sharena, and Alfonse for this chapter. I guessed at everyone else's height, and Fauna's kind of short to begin with, so...

Also my friend and I just imagined this with their actual voices and laughed. For context, neither of us imagine Veronica's voice as it is in Heroes—it just sounds like Maribelle to me.)


	15. Chapter 13

"You have three choices," Sharena explained. They'd just began scouting the halls; Alfonse was sure she was just doing it to fill in the silence and distract herself from the rather eery scene. "Proclaim your childhood crush, do something completely embarrassing in public, or tell everyone your deepest darkest secret." She paused. "'None' and 'die' are not an option."

"Embarrassment," Anna declared.

"Childhood crush," Fauna stated.

"Dark secret," Veronica answered.

Sharena looked over at him. "Alfonse, you've gotta answer, too."

He just said nothing. Two of those things meant the same thing to him, and the other would most likely be the outcome. He had a feeling she knew this, however, and just wanted to hear him admit it.

She gave him a stubborn look. "What if I told you my choice?" He didn't answer. "Fine. But you know that literally four out of the five of us already know, right? At least I think there's four." She glanced over at Veronica. "Hey, do you know Alfonse likes—"

"Gods, yes, you don't have to say it," Veronica interrupted. "Not long ago I realized the feeling's neutral, apparently. So that's something to look forward to."

Alfonse bit back a "What? Really?!" and actually found himself hoping she was kidding, or trying to mess with him. Or maybe just for someone to change the subject.

"I don't know why with that stupid look you always do, though." She added with a frown. "You just look like an idiot."

Fauna let out a bit of nervous laughter. "Uh, can I get some explanation here? I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't know what's going on…"

"There's a reason I said four out of the five," Sharena replied. "It makes sense—it's kinda something you've gotta see them doing in order to get it. Really it's adorable. Especially when my brother here starts muttering about it in his sleep." At this statement, Veronica snorted. "I'd go into more detail but I feel like I'm just gonna get interrupted again."

"Sharena, please," Alfonse sighed. "And don't give me that playful smile like you didn't do anything."

"It is literally just Fauna," Sharena pointed out. "You're lucky I haven't told Mother yet."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me, Brother. I bet she'd be all over both of you. Either that or she'd do that weird squeak thing like she did with Anna."

Anna shrugged. "No one said the Order of Heroes had to be socially appropriate. Not like anyone who cares for that notices we exist, anyway, but it's the thought that counts."

"Is this not a normal thing in Askr?" Veronica asked, sounding a bit confused. "In Embla we're joined together by our common goals. If one wanted honor, they were given the chance to earn it in battle. It didn't matter if the person you were married to were man or woman…yet in my time here I find that's not the case?"

"Well, when you're both royalty of opposing sides of—" Alfonse stopped himself when he wondered why he was even explaining this. "You should get the point."

"Aww, you were just about to say it!" Sharena teased, poking him playfully.

"I'll add that to my list of 'reasons smart people should move to Embla,' then." It was hard to tell whether Veronica was joking or being serious. "Really I'm beginning to wonder how Askr still has loyal followers. A throne built on cowardice, the lack of tradition for the way it was formed…how you're either like everyone else or nonexistent, apparently."

"Just shut up." Anna returned coldly. "You don't hear us saying how bad Embla is, do you?"

"Really it's not as 'bad' as you think," Veronica responded. "And I'm saying that as someone who's spent a great deal of time considering it. The only positive thing I can think of about Askr is that it seems to breed the most fascinating stupid people I've ever seen—and really that's not all that good."

Anna groaned. "I don't suppose you'll actually shut up now? I'd even say 'please' if I knew it was a part of Emblian vocabulary."

This earned her a whack from Sharena. "Nice." She reminded the commander with a warning tone and stubborn frown. "It may be too late for a winter festival gift, but I will glitter everything again. With permanent glue."

"Gods, someone explain to me how you still get presents," Anna muttered. As she said this, she gave Alfonse a very obvious, pointed glare. He shrugged as if he had no idea what she was talking about. Sharena didn't seem to notice any of it.

Veronica laughed. "Oddly enough you never cease to amuse me." She paused. "If not for the fact it's giving me a headache just standing next to you, I wouldn't mind if we were related."

"Wait, really? Say that again!" Sharena insisted with a mischievous grin.

"No." She answered simply. "Admitting it should be enough."

(Fun fact: this story chapter was supposed to be story-important, but instead it turned into this. On the bright side, you now have a bit more world building, an even more obvious hinting.)


	16. Chapter 14

Eventually they found what seemed to be an old library. Dusty books were accompanied by a musty smell, and with some books still out, it told of a time when it was once used.

"…and we will have fun—" a voice rung out from the silence. But none of them had spoken.

"Did…anyone else hear that..?" Fauna asked hesitantly.

Sharena nodded, stepping a bit close to Alfonse. "It sounded like…me." She muttered in agreement. "Years ago, right before we met Anna and Feh."

After she mentioned it, he realized she was right. She'd threatened to make Alfonse stay longer if he even thought about their father. Out of reluctance alone, he had agreed and hoped Sharena would let him leave eventually—thinking on it now, he was glad he went. If not, they might still be at the royal castle; the Order simply wouldn't exist.

"It's nice to know you were always a brat," Veronica remarked.

"Hey! I've got my reasons!" Sharena protested stubbornly. "YOU trying having a jerk for a father and tell me how much you like it!"

"Well, I guess I'll never know." Veronica's tone was more mocking than anything else. "My father loved me. But I guess not everyone can be the favorite."

Sharena gave her an annoyed glare. "Are you trying to tick me off?"

"No, it's just easy to mess with Askrans," Veronica answered simply.

"Please don't test my patience," Sharena said. "I'd rather not add you to the list of reasons I really, really want to go home."

Anna waved at the shelves in front of them. "If I can interrupt you two for a moment. I don't want you guys here any longer than you do. But we need to figure out where we are first, because if it's anything like what little we know, it's not good. With any luck we can find something quickly if we work together."

"Me and Sharena can check this side," Alfonse suggested. He'd been meaning to have a moment alone with her since they got there; she was starting to seem a little…distant. When Anna didn't seem too convinced, he continued. "Fauna will be the buffer between you and Veronica."

"When you put it like that it sounds kind of pathetic…" Anna said.

"I find it amusing that is what you need to be told in order to agree." Veronica stated, turning. "We don't have forever. We've got a lifetime to yell at each other later."

With that, the three of them walked off. Alfonse and Sharena went over to the closest stack of books and started gently shuffling through them.

He glanced up at her. "How've you been holding up?"

"Horribly." Sharena replied in false casualness. "I feel awful, everyone's either yelling at each other or being deathly silent, we're stuck here with no idea if we can even go back, and I'm pretty sure Mother is worried sick over us." She shook her head. "Don't forget that explanation I'm waiting to be asked about, because you can't look at her look at me and tell me she still hasn't noticed."

"I just asked a question…" he pointed out gently. She'd gotten more upset than he had intended—that is, he hadn't meant to upset her at all.

Another voice spoke up before either of them could. "WE MADE COOKIES, ALFONSE. COOKIES."

Sharena jumped. "There's another…and it's still mine… Both of them when I was mad at you, too." She looked unsettled as she turned back to the books. "Let's just hope we can leave soon…this place is getting really creepy really fast."

The two of them searched in silence. Most of the other voices—which slowly began to range between the four of theirs, excluding Fauna—were ignored after that, save for a particular threat from what sounded like a younger Anna; from the sounds of it she'd been talking to a bird, and a strong curse was used. Once it finished, their commander firmly shouted "Don't tell your mother you heard that!" from across the library.

Sharena waved to the books around them. "These are all blank."

"What?" Alfonse walked over to her to figure out what she meant.

"See for yourself." She turned one of the books to him and opened it. "Empty. All of them."

She was right. There was nothing. "Let's see if the others are having any better luck, then."

They seemed to have had the same idea.

The five met back up at the center of the library. Fauna was carrying a book, and on Anna's nod, she sat it on the table.

"I'm guessing you didn't find anything?" Anna asked.

"There's nothing to find, apparently," Alfonse answered.

"We noticed." Anna remarked bluntly. She motioned to the book. "Though Veronica just happened to find the only one that's not blank."

Veronica shrugged. "This library is similar to one I've been in before. I simply went to the place my favorite book was."

"Yeah, and you figured that out how?" Anna gave Veronica an unbelieving glance.

"I decided since we're stuck here I might as well read," Veronica replied sarcastically. She dropped the tone. "I guessed, you idiot. In a place of nightmares everything is familiar enough to be recognizable but nothing else. One should try to find the one thing they know would never change."

Anna still didn't seem very convinced until she turned her attention back to the book. "Well, let's figure out what this says."

(Yay, the part of the story where I can start quoting my OTHER story! AKA the part that inspired this story...

And it's fourteen chapters in and a character is just now being sarcastic... This is also one of the only mentions to Feh.)


	17. Chapter 15

The book, thankfully, held quite a bit of details of the world. It was written in a rather sloppy hand, so every now and again each of them would take a turn guessing what the word was—whoever had written it must've either been in a hurry or didn't expect anyone to be reading it. From there they learned that the portal had closed on its own; that the world constantly shifted. The same creatures supposedly responsible for all the missing people roamed the world at night, besides from several other forts similar to one they were in now. Those same forts were described as showing things from the past, which gave a much needed explanation about the voices.

One thing it didn't say, however, was how they could stop this and go back. Though there was a fair share of warnings about staying in one place for too long.

With that unsettling knowledge, they made their small camp at the back of the library.

"We'll take turns on lookout," Anna said while they ate. Everyone nodded.

Fauna slowly raised her hand.

"Yes, Fauna?" Anna inquired cautiously.

"Did you actually say that?" Fauna asked, obviously curious. She looked like she thought she'd get in trouble for asking. "That 'you're with the royals so I'm assuming you aren't kidnapping them' thing?"

Anna sighed. "That. Yes." She seemed to notice Veronica's mildly amused expression and Sharena's muffled giggle. "Look, I was like…fifteen, okay?"

"You were such a dork back then," Sharena added teasingly. "Then leadership happened, I guess."

"No, actually…" Anna muttered, seeming embarrassed. "You guys happened."

"Aww, you're my favorite commander, too!" Sharena beamed.

"Even when you do stupid stuff," Alfonse agreed. "Thank you for your lack of those recently, by the way."

Anna smirked. "Just don't die on me and we're even."

"Fair enough."

They finished up their meal, went over when they'd switch who was on lookout, and tried to get some sleep.

…

"You can't sleep all day, you know." Hearing his younger self got him up. Apparently the voices had a thing for having perfect timing, since the sun was beginning to rise.

"Why did you whack me with a pillow..?"

"Because I needed to wake you up and I figured you wouldn't like it if I tugged your blankets off instead."

Then Alfonse realized what day the voices were quoting. The time he and Zacharias had been alone together for most of the day…the day he'd regretted either not spitting out his thought or opening up his mouth at all. And just as he began hoping the others would still be asleep until it stopped, they stirred.

"But why wait to take a nap later when I could go just back to sleep now?" A voice asked as it continued the verbal reliving.

A not-completely-awake Sharena laughed. "That's our Zacharias!" She glanced over at her brother. "When was this?"

"Six years ago," Alfonse sighed. It wasn't the exact time. He figured if he'd said the full date they'd question why he remembered it. How could he forget it? Every time he was about to the whole events of the day would find a way to haunt him again.

The voices continued. "I'm pretty sure Commander Anna expects us to be done by the time they come back."

"Well I'm pretty sure she doesn't expect anything."

"I really didn't," Anna remarked honestly as she helped Fauna pack up their things. "Even without context, I'm pretty sure I didn't expect both of you to do it. If at all."

Luckily the voices skipped most of the conversation that happened after that, though it did pick back up in an odd part. "Up until a few years ago, I had a caring mother, a father, and a little sister. Then my mother was accused of unforgivable things, and the only one who walked away happy was my father."

Knowing now the family Zacharias had been referring to, Alfonse looked at Veronica. Her expression remained unreadable. He found himself feeling bad for her; until he reminded himself of everyone who'd yell at him for it.

It continued to jump until the end of that conversation. He was glad for it, though—that would've taken more of an explanation than the next thing the voices said.

"There's something else—"

Something close to realization flashed across Anna's face. "Was that the day we were out scouting? I told you if it took me eleven years to get used to Sharena one of us might be dead?" He ignored the fact that that was how she remembered the day, and nodded. "Huh."

Fauna still seemed confused. "I feel like the answer should be obvious but I still don't get it…" Anna, who was right beside the Summoner anyway, leaned closer and whispered something to her. Fauna then looked up at Alfonse, similar to that of a mother when her child walked up to her with a puppy and asked 'can I keep it?' "Wait, really? That's adorable!"

"Can we please continue on with our morning?" Alfonse suggested. He made it quite clear he did not want to continue on with this conversation.

(Yay, now you can figure out Anna's age if you math! I'll give you a hint: both of these past events happen at the same general time.

Also Fauna knows now. I'm pretty sure it's 99.9% obvious at this point, too.)


	18. Chapter 16

A few minutes later, everyone slightly dispersed. Veronica had practically disappeared with very little word on where she was going (much to Anna's annoyance), Sharena and Fauna were talking about cute animals, and Alfonse and Anna went to figure out if there was any sort of map in the book.

It wasn't even a minute before Anna started muttering. She was doing more grumbling than reading; though, really, that's why he was there. To read, and to inevitably half-listen to her.

"She blames me for not trusting her, and then says she'll be back in a few minutes." Anna complained, just loud enough that he could hear it.

Alfonse sighed, though he didn't look up from the book. "Veronica said she'd still be in the library," he reminded her. "Just because you can't see her doesn't mean she's doing something bad."

She mumbled something that sounded like, "You don't need to do something bad in order to do something harmful." Anna stared blankly at Sharena and Fauna, who were blissfully unaware of it as they talked.

"I'm here if you need someone to curse at." Alfonse offered generally, flipping a page.

"Well I can't curse at you," Anna responded. She still wasn't very loud and he wondered if she was aware of it. "You're not the problem. Admittedly close, but it's still not you."

He squinted at one of the words written in the book. "We're alone. The other two aren't listening. I won't take it personally." He almost said "I won't take it actually" as he read the word "actually."

"Yeah, but then I'd feel bad," she replied. "You just take care of your sister. I can handle the rest."

Alfonse turned another page. The author's handwriting was awful, and oddly similar to Sharena's when she didn't care. "You're putting too much pressure on yourself again. It's not good to keep things from people who could help."

This seemed to amuse Anna. "I think you should listen to yourself right now. In case you haven't noticed, you're not exactly the most social person I know. Though I got to hand it to you, you do a fine job avoiding the world."

"It comes naturally," he stated casually. "Sometimes it's just very satisfying to find a quiet corner and read." As if to taunt him, yet another word was written so poorly it took him a moment to figure out what it was. He frowned. "Assuming it's legible."

Anna leaned closer to look at it. "I think that's not a word," she remarked bluntly. "Unless if it's someone's name?"

He shrugged. "Maybe." Having a closer look, Alfonse was beginning to wonder if this had been a personal journal of sorts; while it was very helpful, there were parts that didn't fit well with formal writing. Little scribbles on the paper and the questions involving some unknown "they" were among these things.

Curious, he used his finger to mark his place and flipped through the pages. Over three-fourths of the way done the book, it was all empty. He looked for the date of the last entry. While he didn't find one, the entry itself said enough:

'They're here.

Should you find this—which you undoubtably have—there's something that will prove useful in your search. Three halls down at the fifth door, to your left, should be a note. It has something very important on it. The rest is pretty self-explanatory after that.'

"What are you—" Anna cut herself off once she read it. She muttered a curse. "Gods, I hate mysterious people." She glanced over at him. "Go get the others."

Alfonse nodded, gently closing the book. He walked over to where the three girls were—while he and Anna were talking, Veronica must've come back because she now sat with them.

"…small and adorable." Sharena said as he got closer. She sounded like she was fully paying attention, but her gaze was elsewhere. "Puppies and baby dragons are always cute. Fight me."

"I beg to differ." Veronica shook her head. "Dragons are horrible."

"They aren't horrible," Fauna remarked defensively. "I'm sure there's tons of nice dragons out there."

"No, actually, because they're all dead." Veronica pointed out harshly. "Good riddance. Though you're right, they aren't just horrible. What's the next worst thing? Because that's probably not even close."

"Care to tell us why you think that?" Sharena asked. "Dragons are awesome. They can breathe fire! They're huge! Imagine being friends with one! That would be the best."

Fauna noticed Alfonse first. She waved, turning the other two's attention to him. "Hey, Alfonse! Care to join us? We're talking about our favorite animals."

"No," he answered simply. He gestured to Anna. "We found something interesting."

The three nodded in nearly-perfect unison. One at a time, they got up and went to stand around the table Anna was waiting by. Alfonse watched them before walking back himself.


	19. Chapter 17

After Anna announced what they were doing, everyone grabbed their things. When everything was gathered, they left the library. The three girls continued on their conversation about dragons for a bit; before Anna announced they were there.

When the door opened, it immediately smelled like something had died there. It was completely empty, though, which was a bit confusing. Then again he didn't really want Sharena seeing a dead thing.

Sharena stepped back behind Alfonse. "Please don't say we have to go in there…"

"Smells like home," Veronica remarked casually at the same time. She seemed completely fine with it.

"Wait, really?! Tell me you're joking." Sharena looked and sounded disgusted.

Veronica shrugged. "Father was fond of putting up the bodies of Embla's enemies up on the outer walls of the palace; it showed anyone that passed the might of his empire. You get used to it."

"You're making me sick…" Sharena mumbled, frowning.

"Then you shouldn't have asked," Veronica returned. "I'm only being honest."

Fauna didn't say anything, but she clearly wasn't pleased either.

Anna wordlessly poked her head inside, walked in the room, and came back with a note. She closed the door behind her. "One day you're gonna need to deal with it."

"You treat them like kids," Veronica observed. "But I'm not in the place to complain. It makes my job a lot easier, too."

Alfonse decided not to give Anna any time to respond. "The note?"

"Right." She nodded, shooting Veronica one last look before reading the note. "'On the back of this is a map to the other forts; they shouldn't have changed yet. You should be able to get there before nightfall if you leave at dawn. Everything else will become evident once you get to the last fort.'" Anna turned it over, and studied what was on it. "We're going to have to stay here one more night. Just to be safe."

They shared a collective nod.

"Oh!" Fauna perked up a little. "Does this mean we can explore a bit more? When I was up last night I heard a bird—they didn't sound very happy so I want to make sure they're okay."

Veronica blinked. "Did you just talk about a bird like it was sentient?"

"Yes?" Fauna answered slowly. "Birds are pretty smart, you know."

"Birds insist on flying right into glass. Several times." Veronica pointed out bluntly. "People are dumb but at least they learn from that stupidity once it caused them pain."

"They're just persistent!" Fauna defended. "And, to be fair, they can't see the glass. How are they supposed to know there's something blocking them?"

"When they crash into it," Veronica said. "Yet they continue to do it. Explain that to me."

Fauna opened and closed her mouth a few times, then there was a moment of silence while the other three caught up to the current line of conversation.

"Er, alright, so." Anna stepped between them. "Fauna, I'm giving you four hours to take us wherever you please. After that, we're going closer to the entrance and camping out there."

Fauna smiled. "Thanks! They shouldn't be too far. But before we start…" She dig into her back and pulled out several chocolate bars. "Snacks?"

No one spoke. Sharena, however, gladly took one of them. Fauna shrugged and stuffed the rest back in her bag before gesturing for them to follow her.

…

They couldn't find the bird Fauna had been looking for, so she laid out some bird food (which made Alfonse a bit curious on what exactly she'd packed) in the hallway instead. Anna then began leading them to the entrance.

A child's laughter cut through the quietness. Sharena stopped, but since they were at the back of the group, only Alfonse seemed to notice. He glanced at his sister.

She looked pale as her eyes followed something he couldn't see. "That…that's us…" Her voice wasn't much more than a whisper.

"What?" He knew she wasn't talking about the laughter. Alfonse checked to see how far the others were. From the looks of it, none of them had noticed yet; they probably wouldn't as it appeared they'd started a conversation. He didn't quite know if he should tell them to wait or hope they'd realize they weren't following anymore.

"It's us," Sharena repeated. She looked about ready to either cry or pass out. If those were the only two options, he'd really prefer the first. "You don't see it." It wasn't a question.

"I don't understand…" Alfonse admitted. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Sharena shook her head slowly. "I…think I'm seeing things." She stepped closer and leaned against him. "The rest of you just hear the voices…" she trailed off before she could finish. "Let's join the others before they start wondering where we are."

(Fauna, I think you need to realize you're not with kids anymore...all these guys are older than you, not younger...)


	20. Chapter 18

They were able to catch up pretty easily. And no one noticed their absence, either.

"…aren't you fifteen?!" Anna was saying as they got closer.

Fauna nodded sheepishly. "Mhm. I'd be sixteen if Heroes didn't technically age. And it's really not as bad as it might sound—I was kinda like an adopted big sister." She seemed proud at this fact.

"The day I understand what nobles choose to spend their money on…" Anna shook her head. "If I had that much money, you better believe I'm going to fix up the castle." She paused. "Then I'm hiding the rest of it until we need it. And then it's going to be gone in six months."

"I don't think you get how rich they were," Fauna remarked. "They were like 'our-maids-have-a-giant-bedroom-and-that's-not-even-close-to-the-size-of-the-master's-room' rich."

"And I don't think you get how much it costs to support an army." Anna returned dully. "Also Heroes are really good at breaking stuff. Have you not seen the holes in the walls recently?"

"Aren't the walls made out of brick..?"

"Exactly."

Fauna just blinked. "How… No, wait, I don't want to know."

They entered the first room of the fort. Everything was exactly the same as it was when they first came here.

They all dispersed to different parts of the room. Veronica went to a corner. Anna took up another. Sharena and Alfonse sat against the wall. And Fauna made herself comfortable between the three of them, though wasn't very close to anyone. After everyone chose their positions, Anna tossed each of them some food from her bag.

Sharena did little more than nibble on hers.

He didn't have time to question her, though.

"So this is like a world of nightmares, right?" Fauna asked. She was answered in a nod from each of them. "Does that mean we might run into big cleaning supplies that keep on saying 'you missed a spot'?"

No one said anything for over a minute.

"Fauna, I think you might want to cut back on the cleaning spray…" Sharena reminded her softly.

Veronica had apparently been in the middle of drinking something. She nearly choked on it when she heard Fauna's question. "If that is the most terrifying thing you dream about…well, suffice to say our job would be a lot easier. Though, to actually answer your question, no. Presumably, we shouldn't unless we stay out past dark."

"Which is not something I plan on letting happen," Anna added firmly.

"But that doesn't mean it's completely out of the question," Fauna pointed out. "I mean, what kind of stuff should we expect, just in case?"

"If I had to guess, death." Veronica replied casually.

The fact she was almost completely correct wasn't actually very surprising to Alfonse. Even Anna gave a little shrug of neutral agreement.

"Let's hope that doesn't happen, then…" Fauna remarked quietly, looking defeated.

Shortly after that, they fell into silence and eventually all went to sleep. At Anna's request (something she'd told him but not the others), he stayed up a bit later than the rest; waking up Anna a few hours later so she could take watch.

His dream wasn't a pleasant one, and he was woken up earlier than he would've liked to the sound of roaring winds.

Turns out the others were up, too. Anna was packing up their things, Fauna and Sharena were huddled together in a corner whispering about something, and it was hard to tell if Veronica was awake or not since her back was turned away from them. He sat up, gaining Fauna's attention. She then waved him over.

Alfonse walked to them, sitting back down at Fauna's nod. Sharena gave him a weak smile in greeting.

"Can you stay with Sharena for me?" Fauna asked, not quite whispering but still not very loud. "There's something I want to talk to Anna about."

"I don't feel that bad," Sharena said stubbornly.

Fauna glared at her. "You look horrible." She stood up in a swift, elegant movement. "The cure-all 'get some rest' doesn't work when we're always doing something. I may be younger than you, but trust me on this, okay?"

Sharena sighed reluctantly. "Knew I shouldn't have told you," she muttered.

"I heard that." Fauna shot back before she walked away.

Even if he didn't say anything, Alfonse agreed with Fauna. If just his voice of reasoning wasn't enough, surely the added help of the Summoner's would be. Either that or his sister would ignore both of them and learn the hard way that they'd been right in their concern. Though he prayed it wouldn't come down to it.

(Yay, more kinda-backstory for Fauna! Also, there. The least-math-needing age of them all.)


	21. Chapter 19

Whatever Fauna had talked to Anna about, the commander didn't seem to like it. She announced it was almost time to leave soon after that. Alfonse unwillingly participated in a game (Sharena had insisted on best out of three, for two rounds) of rock, paper, scissors to determine who'd wake up Veronica. He'd somehow lost despite being logical. Sharena teased him by saying he lost because he thought about it too much. Thankfully for him, however, Veronica had already been up. She packed up what was hers and they headed out.

Veronica's horse was waiting outside, seeming quite happy to see her. To everyone else's surprise—even if they weren't obvious in showing it—she mounted effortlessly, despite the horse most definitely not picked for someone her height. Little thought was put on how it was fine but the book had implied they would not be; Veronica shrugged it off as "horses don't dream" and Fauna had firmly protested.

They were quiet as they walked. Everyone stayed in something close to a collective huddle, unlike the normal gap between the three in the lead and the two in the back. Sharena seemed to keep up just fine with the rest of them, even though her morning didn't start very well from what he'd gathered. And just as the sun was going down, they reached their destination.

Once inside, they were greeted by a voice—much like the ones from the other fort.

"There are monsters in the shadows. Creatures from your own mind, your own nightmares. With every passing day, they long for a taste of your fear…or of anything they can get their hands on. Who knows, one day, they might grow restless and attack." The voice was gentle and soft, the kind of voice a child could fall asleep to no matter what was being spoken.

Veronica went still. "Mother…" For the first time that he'd heard her, she didn't sound annoyed or bored or dull. She sounded sad; hurt, even.

"Isn't that a little dark to be telling your kid, though..?" Sharena wondered aloud, by her tone clearly not meaning anything.

"Oh, right." Her short-lived moment of actually expressing herself was gone, replaced again with her normal tone. "Bruno's mother."

That only made Sharena more confused. She looked at Alfonse but he just shrugged, not really having any better answer.

"It's an Emblian legend," Veronica continued. She didn't seem to want to stay on the subject of her mother. "To keep kids from wondering too far away from home. I didn't consider until about a month ago it was actually real."

Alfonse had stopped listening. He realized why the legend sounded familiar the first time Anna had told them, and how he knew it wasn't from a book. Zacharias had told them; him and Sharena, at least. Albeit he'd always told it over a campfire or during a thunderstorm and was almost a bit too over-dramatic, but it was still the same story at its roots.

"I just told kids that if they were nice I'd give them a cookie…" Fauna said quietly. "Different cultures I guess, but the stories I grew up to weren't meant to scare kids." She paused. "They never scared me, at least—and my friend used to tell me all the time that everything scared me." The last bit was more of an off-handed remark.

"I can tell you're not from Askr," Veronica casually informed the Summoner. "You're much more open-minded than any Askran I've ever come across. If I didn't have very good reasons to hate you, I think we'd get along well."

"Um…thank you..?" Fauna clearly didn't know what she should be doing. "I think..?" She perked up. "I like learning everyone's side of the story, though. It's easier to see the full picture and make the right choice."

This earned her a gentle smile from Veronica. "Well, for the time being I'd be willing to tell you." She sounded genuinely pleased and Alfonse couldn't help but wonder if she was feeling alright. "It's nice to hear someone interested for a change." She gave the other three a pointed glare.

Fauna smiled, too. "No problem!"

Anna stepped in, preventing them from continuing their conversation further. "Great, and you'll have plenty of time to do that tomorrow. But not right now. Fauna, you're coming with me. You three stay here. Alfonse is in charge." She turned around and started walking away.

Fauna nodded and bounded after her. A moment later the two of them disappeared on the other side of the door.

Sharena went over to a wall, promptly sitting down. She pulled out her blanket from her bag and wrapped it around her. Alfonse joined her.

Veronica sat at the opposite wall. Gently, she took out a book from her own bag, and opened it up slowly. He knew she wasn't writing in it; the lack of writing materials proved it. And it couldn't be the book they'd found at the other fort, because he knew Anna had packed it with her things. He didn't know if he was technically being rude by wondering what it said.

"Is it yours?" Sharena asked, much braver than Alfonse was. Her considerate smile was enough to gain her an answer.

"No." Veronica noticeably slumped further, like she hoped to become invisible if she was small enough. "It was written for someone else."

"Who?" She really did sound curious, but not in her normal bug-you-until-you-answer kind of way. He figured he wasn't the only one to notice Veronica's bits of emotion.

Veronica sighed. "Someone much better than me." She left it off there.

(Yes, they hold a firm belief that poking Veronica is literally like poking a sleeping bear. Also, have some more Veronica in your life.)


	22. Chapter 20

By the time Anna and Fauna came back, Sharena had fallen asleep—using Alfonse's shoulder as a pillow. He didn't mind it, of course, but it kept him from moving too much in fear of waking her up. Veronica was quiet the whole time and if not for the occasional sound of a page being turned, he would've forgotten she was there at all.

Fauna went over to give Veronica some company. "Just a minute," Veronica promised. She closed the book, put it back in her bag, and positioned herself a bit more comfortably. "Where would you like to start?"

Anna walked over to Alfonse, gaining his attention and keeping him from listening further. "I see you've got a Sharena on you." She remarked with a smirk.

"So you've got good news?" He asked. That's what he hoped, at least; she seemed in a good mood.

"As far as we can tell, we're alone," she answered with a nod. "Unless our mysterious friend is hiding somewhere. But I think we would've known by know if they were here." She gestured to a spot beside Alfonse. "May I?"

"Of course." Alfonse watched her sit down. "Is there anything in particular on your mind?"

Anna shrugged. "Can't I just spend some time with you guys?" She glanced over at the sleeping Sharena. "Although only one of them is paying attention."

"Er, yes." He found himself rushing to apologize. "I just assumed, since our other conversations haven't exactly been normal, you had something you wanted to say."

"Nope!" It was nice to see the commander happy. She pulled out food from her bag, tossing two in Veronica and Fauna's direction and handing two more to Alfonse. "Poke your sister; she should eat, too." Anna took out one more piece for herself.

Alfonse looked over to Sharena, softly nudging her.

She swatted at him. "If it's not cupcakes then I don't care…" she muttered, obviously still half (if not more than half) asleep.

"We have cupcakes," Alfonse stated. At least it looked like a cupcake—though if anything it was closer to a muffin. Beside him, Anna smuggled a laugh. "Chocolate cupcakes, with chocolate icing. And chocolate chips sprinkled on top."

"I'll be honest, I will laugh if this works," Anna remarked.

Sharena moaned. "Stop lying, Alfonse. I know we don't have cupcakes." She sat up. "What is it?" Anna couldn't answer since she was too busy trying really hard not to burst out in laughter.

Alfonse handed her one of the pieces he had. "Time to eat."

She gave a little nod, taking it and beginning to eat. Though still in small bites, she actually ate all of it this time. Everyone else finished theirs, and their talking continued.

The three of them kept a lighthearted conversation going for a while. It was one of the few times they could all talk about their past together without having to be overly mindful on Fauna's presence; it was clear she always felt out of place among them when the subject would be brought up, so generally they avoided it when she was in the room. This time, however, she was too interested in Veronica's stories to pay attention to them.

It ended abruptly when Anna announced they should get some sleep. They all agreed.

…

"Please wake up…" It was a familiar whisper, spoken by someone who'd taken a moment from crying to get him.

The wind could still be heard from inside, like it had been since the sun went down. He didn't know if the distant rumbling of thunder was his imagination or not, though.

Alfonse sat up, giving his sister a reassuring nod. Not like either of them could see much in what little light was available. He didn't have time to say anything before Sharena practically threw herself at him.

"What's wrong..?" Especially when they were younger, it wasn't uncommon for her to come to him at the middle of the night because of a storm or a bad dream. Many of those times he'd found it a bit inconvenient but couldn't just tell her no. Very few of those times she'd been too shaken to answer him—and he realized this was one of those times.

She just kept crying, hugging him like he might disappear.

"I'm not going anywhere," he reminded her in hopes of calming her down a little. He was actually physically unable to with her on him, but he didn't include that. "But I can't help if you don't tell me what the problem is."

Sharena sniffled. "I…finally remembered the nightmare… The one I told you about earlier? When I kind of yelled at you and—and then just shrugged it off and teased you..?" She was barely audible and he could barely understand her.

Alfonse nodded slowly. He put his hands around her in a comforting gesture.

"It just felt so real…" she continued in a whisper. "I thought…even Veronica had…had…" She couldn't even finish her thought before she started crying again. "Normally I'm a little disappointed when I don't remember my dreams…but I wish this had stayed forgotten."

"Well, everything's fine now." Being reassuring and comforting was not something he needed to do normally, and really he thought he was pretty bad at it. Not like he had a very good example to learn from. "We're all still here."

Admittedly, he looked around to make sure that was true; the shadowy lumps signifying Anna and Fauna weren't that hard to find, and he assumed Veronica was somewhere by the other wall despite being unable to actually see her.

"I'm going to tell her tomorrow," Sharena decided softly. "Don't know how, but…she's been kept out of this long enough. And I'll admit this has gone a bit too far to keep between the two of us…"

(So this is a thing. Fauna is literally a third wheel if there ever was one. Er, I guess kind of like a replacement for the actual fourth wheel...)


	23. Chapter 21

As far as Alfonse knew, Sharena kept her word. Anna tasked the other three with packing up their things before she and Sharena went to another room to talk in private. He didn't even hear any yelling of any kind. They came back both looking a little relieved, and the group left in higher spirits than the day before—even if they left a bit later.

"If only you could see it…" Veronica mused as they walked. She'd continued telling Fauna about Embla after noon; this time Alfonse was listening, too, curious to learn about the empire from a resident's view. "All Emblian gardens are beautiful in their own right, but nothing can compare to the royal garden. We would play for hours there…and it's where I reunited with my brother." He could tell by her tone she missed it—hoped with the rest of them they'd be able to return.

"It sounds amazing," Fauna said. "Reminds me of my home, actually. Like, there was forest everywhere. The deer really liked me." She paused. "Though maybe that's because I fed them…"

"Nah, I bet they naturally liked you." Sharena assured her. "Animals love you." She smiled mischievously. "Hey, if you started singing about love do you think they'll flock around you? Have you ever tried that before?"

Fauna chuckled sheepishly. "I'm an awful singer. I think they'll just run away."

"Someone's being modest,"Anna remarked from the lead. "You're better than you think you are, I can tell you that. Except for your aim. Your aim sucks."

"Agreeable." Fauna nodded. "My friend told me that, too. He's pretty good at throwing daggers. If it weren't for all the big words, I think he'd be good at magic, as well."

Veronica sighed wistfully. "That must be nice…" She shook her head, declaring louder, "I doubt it. This 'old friend' of yours sounds dumber than that one." She waved a hand at Sharena.

"Hey." Sharena frowned at her. "I can math, at least. Kind of."

Alfonse couldn't help but contribute. "Sharena, what's three times pi?"

"You don't multiply with pie—" she stopped herself. "That's not fair! I don't even know what pi is! Only that it has something to do with an actual pie."

"Circle," Anna corrected. "Though I guess a pie kinda is a circle. Luckily for us no one cares that you're literally several grades behind." She glanced over to them. "But the answer's nine point forty-two."

Sharena stared at her. "How—"

Anna shrugged. "I'm good with decimal numbers."

Fauna nudged Sharena. "If it makes a difference, I didn't know what it was either. And cookies are a very reasonable way to teach kids math."

"Maybe for simpler things…" Alfonse muttered. After joining the Order, they were too busy most of the time to drop Sharena off at the castle and get her to sit down long enough to learn something. Being much smarter than a normal kid his age, he'd taken up teaching her whenever possible—he, Anna, and Zacharias would take turns giving her equations to solve as they worked. Most of the time, though, everything they'd tell her flew completely over her head unless she was being active or sweets were in the offering.

"Hm, so what you're saying is that if Askr's survival depends on you getting a perfect score on a test…" Veronica began, sounding amused. "You're doomed." She smiled, as if she was imagining it.

"Eh, pretty much," Sharena admitted. "Unless it involves baking something. Then I've got a halfway decent shot."

Anna nodded. "Second only to Fauna's."

"Much better than Mother's," Alfonse agreed. "I don't know how when she was the one who taught you, though."

"The chef liked me," Sharena answered simply. "I was the perfect taste-tester. And much nicer than the court, too. Basically, I had help and Mother doesn't know. None of you better tell her or else."

"I never talk to the queen to begin with," Anna pointed out. "No problems here. Honestly I don't understand how you two can deal with her for more than three minutes."

"Eleven years of practice." Sharena poked Alfonse. "For me, at least."

"It's definitely something you get used to." He still wasn't used to it. Not like Sharena was. Many times he found their mother's timing horrible, and even if he wanted to tell her to just go away, he couldn't because, well…she gave birth to him. He knew better than that. He was pretty sure it was one of the many things he had drilled into his head by his teachers (along with "NEVER bother a lady on her time of month" and "YOU SHOULD ALWAYS KNOCK ON THE DOOR BEFORE ENTERING A ROOM. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EXPRESS PERMISSION IF IT'S A LADY'S" because THAT is what you should be telling an at-the-time ten year-old boy).

They fell into silence. They got to the fort right after sunset, settling in the first room again.

Anna passed out their dinner. "Eat up and get some rest. It's going to take us a bit longer to get to the next fort, but after that there's only one more left to go."

(Yes, all of Alfonse's instructors are most likely yelling at him because he's being "too casual" around at least Fauna. And this is how chivalry worked you can't convince me otherwise.)


	24. Chapter 22

Even though they left at sunrise, it wasn't until the sun was setting that the fort came onto view, having followed a river most of the way there. A while after noon, Veronica had dismounted to walk with the rest of them; her horse followed her like a lost puppy. It occasionally tried to get her to pet it, but she always shoved it aside.

They picked up their pace when the wind began to blow. Alfonse was pretty sure one of the shadows moved, and if Sharena's nervous movement was any indication, so was she. Anna fell to the back of the group and nudged the rest of them along.

Besides the feeling of impending danger, nothing happened. Anna opened the door to the fort, appearing much calmer than he knew she was. They quickly got in and she scanned the room, frowning.

"Where's Veronica?" She looked back outside through the still-open door.

Everything went silent for a moment. Then Veronica stumbled through the door, dropping to the ground and panting. She looked terrified. Anna sighed in relief and closed the door.

They all had their gaze on the young empress. Fauna pulled out a few things from her bag and began slowly approaching her. "Um…"

"What?" Veronica spat, giving the youngest a glare. Alfonse wondered how long it would take her to notice the tear in her cloak and the dark red stain around it—she definitely didn't know it was there. She followed exactly where their gaze was, going still at the trickle of blood that was running down her arm to form a small puddle just beside her hand.

Too many emotions flickered through her face at once, before settling on a cold, blank expression. "I…I should go…" She started getting up, but Fauna rushed to stand in front of her.

"You're not going anywhere." Fauna stated firmly. "Unless you want to bleed out, that is."

"Fine," Veronica grumbled after a pause. "But I will slap you if you get too close to my face."

Fauna nodded. "Completely understandable." They went to one of the walls, and she pulled up her own sleeves before looking at Veronica's. The other three politely turned away to set up their things. "Can you seriously not feel that?" Her tone was a mix of disbelief and mild concern.

He dared a look at Veronica; she was pressed against the wall, eyes closed and seeming to try to concentrate on something. Alfonse knew it wasn't the pain she was trying to ignore.

"It takes a lot for me to feel pain," Veronica answered simply with a sigh. "I could be stabbed to death and I would probably think it was just a scratch."

"So does that mean it doesn't hurt when you stub your toe..?" Everyone stared at Sharena. "I'm tired, okay? Tired brain works less than normal brain." That was apparently a good enough answer.

Veronica went on as if Sharena hadn't said anything. "You've been with Bruno for four years, fighting and all. Not once had he ever been harmed?"

This earned a bit of nervous laughter from the three. She was right—after a battle, they'd gone back and began enjoying the rest of their evening. Zacharias had seemed perfectly fine even after Sharena had pointed out he'd been bleeding. They spent the night trying to figure out how, but Zacharias had shrugged it off like many other things and eventually it just became irrelevant. It was one of those things about him that became clearer when they had met again.

"I've done what I can do here," Fauna announced. "I can clean it better tomorrow, if Anna lets us stay here another day. You might want to change your clothes. Your sleeve is kind of really bloody now." She stepped back. "We can probably go by the river and wash your cloak."

Veronica nodded once. "May I leave? Either that or can all of you be completely silent for a few hours..?" She grabbed her bag from where it was still sitting in the center of the room, gently pushing things in it aside before pulling out a neatly folded dress.

"Stay right outside the door." Anna told her. "Get changed and come back. We'll eat, get some sleep, and figure out in the morning who's taking you two to the river."

Veronica got up and did just what she was told. Alfonse kept his back turned to her, but it wasn't hard to hear her muttering. It was the same thing over and over, and although the words were slurred together it sounded a lot like "I won't do it. He wouldn't like it." A few minutes later, she appeared in the clean dress with the dirty one in her hands. She took everything out of her bag (which apparently was only the book from earlier, her canteen, more spare clothes, and her blanket) and shoved it at the bottom, putting everything back in its place.

As promised, Anna handed out the food. And for a while, they'd all stayed silent while.

"I-if it's alright to ask…" Fauna began softly. "What did that to you? What…what did you see?"

"Something that's plagued my mind for as long as I can remember." Veronica merely poked what she'd been given to eat. "A fine example of a living nightmare." She didn't give any better of an answer.

(In the past week, I've had a dream about Alfonse and Sharena, another that I was Tiki, and another that I was me writing about an OC serving Veronica and another OC. I need to take a break from Fire Emblem. Will I? No.

Also, forgive me, I messed up time. If the winter festival is the same time as our Christmas, then New Years would've already happened by the time of Henriette's friend's party. Oops.)


	25. Chapter 23

The decision was made rather easily; Anna accompanied Fauna and Veronica. Alfonse stayed with Sharena, who'd spent a great deal of the morning sleeping. When the three of them came back a few hours later, Veronica sulked off to the furthest corner of the room and the other two sat closer to where Alfonse was. None of them spoke, save for Sharena's occasional sleepy muttering.

Fauna toyed with the edge of her shirt. "So…" She was quiet, but loud enough that they could all hear her. "What now?"

"Wait for tomorrow," Anna answered simply. "Sharena's got the right idea; this is possibly the last place we'll be able to rest until this is over. We don't know what—or who, for that matter—might be waiting for us. Best try to be prepared for anything, just in case."

"We're…not going to talk about it, then…" Fauna got quieter. She noticeably appeared to be trying to make herself smaller. "And we're just going to…sit here… Like the problem doesn't exist."

"There's not a problem." Anna corrected, looking down at the ground instead of any of them. Her expression remained unreadable, which was probably the biggest clue that she was lying.

"I might be considerably weak and kind of pathetic when compared to the rest of you, but…" Fauna shifted. She was more absently mumbling than actually talking; similar to the way she talked when they first met her. "I'm not blind and I know how to read…Whoever wrote that book we found knows us. Like, knows us. They've mentioned all of us, in ways that can't be anyone else. Wherever they were from, we were their friends. So they know us but we don't know them—isn't that at least a bit concerning?"

No one answered.

Fauna sighed. "Then what about this: the author said that here, what counts as reality and dream is basically screwed, thrown out the window, screwed yet again, then burned, and that it only gets worse the longer we're here." She looked at Veronica, and her voice became level. "Veronica. You've been abandoned, defenseless, needing the help of your enemies. You're left with your brother's horse and mother's writing. Things slowly start getting worse, you're being accused of something you weren't responsible for, and then it happened. You got caught by what you feared most—something you can't escape—and since then have been even more distant and snappy than usual." She finished it off rather matter-of-factly. "Now, what's the worst nightmare you ever had?"

Alfonse didn't know if he'd ever heard Fauna talk so much at once. Sure, she could get pretty social when brought into a conversation, but not even when the subject was something she was passionate about did she say any more than a few sentences at a time. Not to mention, he'd never heard her actually say "screwed" before (which was, admittedly, what took him so long to comprehend everything she'd just said).

Veronica stared at her. "I…" She shook her head slowly. "How..?" It was clear by her tone that she didn't want to acknowledge Fauna was correct.

"For the most part, your actions was all I needed," Fauna informed her. "It's kind of obvious you'd be reluctant to join us. What wasn't so obvious was why you joined us without any means of defending yourself—not until later. You mutter a lot, particularly after a nose bleed and since you cut your arm. Really, it sounds like you're talking to yourself—and, well, I guess you kind of are. A thing you like mentioning is about 'making him happy' which I'd always assumed meant your brother because why would Xander—the only other 'him' I know you're close to—care about what you do to us? Your brother didn't want you to hurt us; that's why you're unarmed, so then you wouldn't accidentally stab someone like he almost did." Both Anna and Alfonse flinched at this. She spoke of it so casually, then again it was a simple thing to do when she hadn't been there. "Yesterday, when you said the thing that hurt you was something that was 'a fine example of a living nightmare,' everything clicked. I was reminded of the way some of the veteran Heroes described you-all-know-who in battle…how it was like a little fire was lit inside him from the moment he saw blood to a couple seconds after it was over. I understood everything right down to why you hate dragons."

She took a moment from her explanation to get a drink of water. "As for the book, I've seen you pull it out before. When we would have a conversation, and it happened to be about parents or siblings or something that was supposed to be bright and fuzzy but you talked about it like it was awful, you'd take it out. Don't worry, though, you're pretty discreet about it. By getting close enough, I saw the handwriting looked like your brother's, but it was a completed book and looked pretty old. It's written in first-person and much like a letter; the author obviously meant for someone close to them to be reading it. You'd said it was for someone better than you…that was only true by the fact it wasn't just written for one person." Fauna gave Veronica a comforting smile. "I knew the horse was your brother's because they told me. They also want you to know they're taking their job transporting you very seriously and want you to relax a little."

"Gods, I hate smart people," Veronica remarked bitterly. "And stop looking at me like that. I'm not—" She suddenly gasped, quickly getting up and walking over to the door. "Don't bother me."

"Get some rest!" Fauna called after her, though she didn't move from her spot. Veronica had already disappeared on the other side of the door. "You'll need it for tomorrow!"

There was a moment of pause.

Anna glared at Fauna with the biggest "what the hell?" expression Alfonse had ever seen.

(I'll admit, that was...a little out of nowhere. But its a point I needed to get across.)


	26. Chapter 24

Fauna noticed Anna's glare immediately, letting out a nervous chuckle. "What..?"

"Yeah, what the freaking hell?!" Anna was not happy, to say the least. "When did you even have time to read it?!"

"I…I did when it was my turn to take watch…" Fauna began shrinking again. "I got curious…and since I had enough light…I thought, maybe…" She was already heard to hear. "You can admit it, you know. It's just us…even if Veronica's close enough to hear us she's probably too busy trying to drown out her own thoughts…"

"There's nothing to admit." Anna stated firmly.

Fauna shook her head slowly. "You're lying. Worse yet, you're denying there's anything wrong at all. I know everything you do is for us but none of us are dumb and we're not little kids. We can handle the truth."

"Really? Because, in case you haven't noticed, Sharena can barely handle her own nightmares right now." She waved to where Sharena was, surprisingly still asleep.

Sharena mumbled something about a puppy and rolled over. Given her rather peaceful expression, it was a little hard to believe she wasn't actually dreaming of rainbows, unicorns, and cute animals.

"Fine then. Four and a half of us," Fauna corrected. "Now can you please? You've read it all the way through, too; you know what I'm talking about. Do you really just want to pretend it doesn't exist? We both know it's not going to make the problem go away. You've told me as much yourself."

"Fauna, I'm only going to say this once. Please shut up."

"No." Fauna obviously didn't like saying that. "Not until you admit that I'm right. You kept this from us. And maybe if you'd just told us sooner we would've been a bit more prepared—"

"That's an order." Anna's tone was cold. She wasn't even looking at any of them anymore.

"Admit it and I'll be quiet until we get to the fort tomorrow." Fauna, despite her best efforts against it, sounded like she was going to get into trouble. "Veronica's hurt. Sharena's definitely not in any condition to be doing this. We're left to follow the word of someone we don't even know. And none of us have been listening to you from the beginning and if we had then we probably half of this wouldn't have happened like it did."

Anna sighed. "You win. You're right. We're screwed. Happy?"

"That is NOT where I was going with that and you know it!" Fauna protested, frowning. "No one's screwed! We're all alive! We're not screwed! So stop it because it's really not helping!"

"No, I'm pretty confident we're screwed." Anna remarked casually. "Unless, of course, we can all walk away on magical rainbows and everything turns out to just be a very bad dream. Which is way too optimistic. Do I have to remind you only two out of the five of us can fight, should it come down to it? You can't, Sharena can't, even if Veronica could I can't trust her not to kill us instead. That leaves me and Alfonse. I don't know about you, but those are some horrible odds. On a normal day I'd, admittedly, let Veronica get killed if it kept the three of you safe. But I keep my word, and having her die here does not sit well with me at all."

Alfonse didn't know if he should intervene and very carefully try to find a solution, or stay where he was and don't do anything. Anna wasn't normally like this; most of the time she proved willing to tell them exactly what was going on as soon as she knew what it was. Her form of tough love and near brutal honesty had helped in the past and proved as a sturdy foundation when needed. At the very least, he'd almost always be up-to-date on her recent discoveries and problems—after all, he was a helpful listener and the most serious out of the three people she completely trusted. But he'd only read about half of the book before skipping to the end to read the last entry, so this was the first time he was hearing this. Whatever the full extent of it was, Anna was making it quite clear she didn't want the others to get involved.

A muted groan caught their attention. "Why are you guys yelling at each other..?" Sharena slowly got up, moving around a little to sit up against the wall. "I thought we were over that…"

"So did I." Anna shook her head. "Listen up and promise me you won't start crying."

"O-okay..? I think..?"

…

Anna, while leaving out how Fauna presented it to them, finally told them everything she knew. She even pulled out the book to show them what was written in it. And Fauna was most definitely right.

On some of the later entries, the author began musing about their past. While they made many mentions to a bird, there was several that fit a loose description of each of them; Fauna, Anna, Alfonse, Sharena, Veronica…even a mention to Zacharias. They also marked changes in the world, making rather cryptic statements to how something was "becoming real." A few entries later, they spent a great deal of paper on trying to explain some of the odd things that had been happening. They referenced original Emblian legend and came to the conclusion that their nightmares were coming back to haunt them. They clearly implied that it was just something that went on here, similar to the periodic changes of geographic features and fort placement.

Sharena had gone pale sometime during the explanation. She had her head on Alfonse's shoulder and blankly stared at the floor. "I feel sick again…"

"Just get some more sleep." Anna told her with a curt nod. "The last fort's not too far away from here, and with any luck we can get there before noon. But that's only if we're all ready to go tomorrow."

(You know, as I wrote part of this chapter at 12 AM, I literally laughed as I realized Anna could be saying "We're screwed because you're right." Also, *sings* Anna's in denial, Anna's in denial—)


	27. Chapter 25

The three of them packed their things early, having everything ready by the time Sharena woke up. She gathered her own stuff as she rambled about the only pleasant dream she'd had that night.

"And I think she was supposed to be a friend of someone?" No one stopped Sharena even though she wasn't really making a lot of sense. "She tried doing this cool thing her friend did and failed. Then, like, as she started cleaning up there was this really monotone narrator? He said something about how those kind of people shouldn't be able to live on their own or something. Then I woke up and when I went back to sleep again I had this weird dream that involved trap doors and puzzles and a market flooded with rats that we needed to catch for some reason…" Alfonse wasn't sure if she was trying to distract herself from something or if she was just too tired to do much more than ramble.

"Gods, if we didn't need to leave soon I'd tell you to go back to sleep." Anna remarked bluntly. She nodded to Fauna and Alfonse. "One of you go get Veronica."

"That won't be necessary." Right on cue, Veronica stepped back into the room and went to grab her bag. She didn't look like she'd slept very much.

Fauna gave her a warm smile in greeting. "Feeling any better?"

"I…think so." Veronica answered. "But about yesterday—"

"It's our little secret," Fauna promised.

Veronica gave her a thankful grin.

Anna stepped between them, handing Veronica some food. "You didn't eat yesterday and you barely ate the day before. I want at least half of this gone before it's time to leave." When Veronica didn't immediately take it, she continued. "I'm still the boss of you until we're back in Askr. If you can't eat that much then it's fine, but you probably should eat something." After that, Veronica agreed and took it to the corner to eat.

Once she was finished, they grabbed their things and left. Alfonse was a bit surprised to see Veronica's horse eagerly waiting for her—since he'd assumed it had gotten startled and ran off two nights ago—but given no one else seemed to pay it much mind, they'd already known that. She didn't mount quite as effortlessly this time, but still didn't need any help. Anna led the way to the next fort.

No one really tried to start a conversation, so they were left in silence. Luckily it really didn't take them long to get there.

"Alright." Anna stopped at the door, turning around to face the others. Alfonse, Sharena, and Fauna stood a little taller to show they were listening. Veronica dismounted, standing beside them with a less enthusiastic approach. "Remember to stick together. I'm assuming I don't have to tell you not to do anything stupid."

Everyone nodded. A moment later, they walked in.

There was nothing in the first room except for a note and the pedestal it was on. It was eerily silent, though the whole room smelled like scented candles and a cooked meal—if it wasn't so quiet, Alfonse would've assumed they'd just stepped into the middle of a feast. An archway was on either side of the wall. One emitted a warm, soft light from whatever was lit inside it, while the other seemed a bit more… foreboding, if such a thing was possible.

Nothing happened.

"Well, that was a bit anticlima—"

Sharena dropped to the ground. The three of them were beside her in a heartbeat. Veronica only watched with a completely blank expression.

"There's so much…" Sharena's voice was trembling. "They're all so loud… I…I can't…"

Alfonse tried placing his hand on her shoulder; for her attention, or as a form of comfort, or really anything. She didn't seem to notice it at all.

"Who?" Anna wasn't even trying to sound calm.

"Everyone…all those people…" She grimaced. "It's like they're all screaming in my ear…"

Veronica shifted slightly from where she stood. Was he imagining it, or did she look pitying..?

Sharena shivered violently. "I can't think…it's not stopping…" She started crying. "I'm scared…"

This won Veronica over. She shoved Anna and Fauna aside.

"What do you think you're doing?" Anna asked.

"Helping." Veronica's tone was cold but also matter-of-fact. She crouched down beside Sharena and started whispering to her.

Sharena responded in even quieter mumbles, and the two continued their hushed conversation. Alfonse wished he knew what she was telling his sister, but even being as close as he was, their voices were just barely audible and much less understandable.

After a couple of minutes, Veronica got up. She turned to Anna, nodding behind the commander to where the note was. "Give her some time. While you're waiting you can tell us what we're dealing with." She glared at Alfonse. He couldn't help but wonder if she enjoyed being able to look down at him. "Stay with your sister. She'll want your comfort." There was a certain edge to her tone that spoke of years of personal experience.

Anna seemed a little skeptical, but did it anyway. She took the note. "'Congrats! I don't know if I should be concerned or amazed that you're exactly the same. Anyway, there's a meal waiting for you in the room to your left. When you're done, I'll waiting for you in the room on the right. Oh, and in case you don't believe me: turn over this note.'" She cautiously turned it over, stepping closer to Alfonse. "Don't you two have something like this?"

He reached out and took it, immediately recognizing the three people in the photo.

(So that happened. On the bright side, I should be able to post the final chapters in the next few days.

For the record, Veronica totally isn't jealous about Alfonse and Sharena's closeness. Totally not. *nervous laughter*)


	28. Chapter 26

It was undoubtably the same photo Alfonse thought it was. Although it had dulled with age and in a rather poor condition, there was still the unmistakable figures of him, Sharena, and Zacharias. He knew that there was three copies (albeit in a much better state), although he only knew the whereabouts of two—since the third disappeared just like its owner and all his other possessions. And Anna knew as much as he did that it wasn't something someone would randomly come across.

He nodded slowly. "I don't understand how this is supposed to make us believe them, though." All it was was mildly unsettling and another reminder that whoever else was here knew them.

"You guys won't give these to just anybody." Anna shook her head. "You don't flaunt them, either. The only people who knew about them was who you told. Whoever this is, they knew that. And they knew all three of you well enough to be allowed to have one." She paused. "But I still don't trust them."

"We can trust them." Sharena's tone was firm even if it was quiet. She sat up, giving Veronica a grateful smile. "Thanks, by the way. You're nicer than you want us to believe."

"I will murder you if you repeat that," Veronica spat. Alfonse was pretty sure she was blushing, though. "I'm not nice. You're loud and obnoxious and I hate you. I was only looking after my own interests by helping."

"But you didn't need to, yet you still did. I'm pretty sure that's being nice."

Veronica only glared at Sharena in response.

"So," Anna began. "Now that you're feeling well enough to be teasing Veronica, care to explain what just happened?"

Sharena sighed. "Right. Basically, as soon as we came in, I heard shouting. It got super loud to the point it literally hurt. Then we know what happened next." She seemed to rush the explanation a little, like she didn't actually want to do it. "Th-they're still there, but…it's a bit more manageable, thanks to Veronica."

Alfonse was just glad she was alright.

"Gods, don't make me regret it," Veronica muttered bitterly. "Let's get on with our afternoon."

There was a mutual mutter of agreement and Anna led the way to the warmly lit room. They were greeted by a scene only familiar to the two siblings, that—despite the kind of things Alfonse began associating it with—had a comforting air to it.

The long table in the center of the room was full of different foods (he saw a cake and immediately hoped Sharena wouldn't notice it until she'd eaten something else), with each of the twenty-one chairs fitted with plates and silverware. One large chair was placed at the end of the table, a running fireplace almost directly behind it, with a slightly smaller one beside it. Every other chair was exactly the same, ten on one side and nine on the other. Enough to fit the king, queen, prince, princess, and higher council of Askr with a few empty spaces left.

"Hey, Alfonse, I dare you to—"

"No." He knew what Sharena was going to say. And he didn't like it in the slightest.

"Might as well start getting used to it!" Sharena remarked, playfully poking him. "I mean, come on. You have to."

"No I don't." Alfonse could feel it; he was going to lose this argument. He still tried, though. What she was asking was not something he'd enjoy.

"Well then I will."

"Sharena, that's even worse." He really wished she was joking, although she most likely wasn't.

She gave him a slightly offended look. Her tone, however, showed she was just messing with him at this point. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you're telling me I can't sit in Father's seat."

"That's exactly what I'm telling you," Alfonse returned dully.

"Did I ever tell you that you're the biggest bummer in the world? It's almost impressing. If it wasn't annoying."

"I've lost count of all the times you've told me that." He really had. It wasn't the most uncommon thing for her to call him. And it was better than what she constantly called their father.

Veronica seemed to be getting a bit of amusement out of this. Fauna was smiling the same way she did whenever she was in earshot during one of these conversations.

Anna rolled her eyes. "Remember we're kind of short on time right now. You can continue doing sibling stuff while we eat." Sharena didn't even have time to step before she continued. "And no one's sitting on the king's chair. Problem solved."

"Aww, not even for a few minutes?"

"If I see you in that chair you're not getting any dessert. And I better not hear you trying to get Alfonse to do it, either." She sternly crossed her arms to get the point across.

Sharena frowned. "You're no fun."

Anna patted her head affectionately. "But I get the job done and that's what matters." She gestured for them all to sit down somewhere. "Let's actually get a sufficient meal for once before we meet our mysterious friend."

They all dispersed to different parts of the table and began to eat.

(Hey look, normal Sharena! That's something this story has been lacking. Also: sibling stuff.)


	29. Chapter 27

They left for the other room as soon as everyone was finished. And just like the first one, the room was almost completely empty.

It resembled a memorial, really. A small table was in the center of the room; lit candles sat around and on it, with a few of them flickering. In the center was another picture, but of much more people than just three.

There was seven people. Six of them were easily recognized, all but two of which definitely looked older. Sharena was tucked between Alfonse and Zacharias, each of them smiling genuinely. Anna was off to the side, and—seeing her compared in height to everyone else—was actually shortest of the four. Veronica, who didn't look any older and actually looked like she was enjoying herself, was close to Zacharias. And finally, Fauna was in the center holding the only person that didn't look familiar: a little boy, maybe about five or six years old, with a baby bird in his hands.

Anna grinned victoriously. "Ha! I'm still taller than Veronica!" She paused. "Aaand I said that out loud, didn't I…"

"I look like I'm twelve." Veronica muttered, ignoring Anna. She seemed fixed on the version of her portrayed in the picture. From the looks of it, she didn't grow much from the undoubtable years between when the picture was done and their current ages now. "That's going to get annoying."

"We all look so happy," Sharena remarked with a little smile.

"It kind of looks like a family picture." Fauna observed, hesitating before gently taking it. "But not the kind meant to be put up in a hall for everyone to see…this was private." She turned it over. "Any of us know a Natheniel?"

"Oh, right. That would be me."

Everyone went silent.

The new voice continued. "So, you see that kid in the middle? That's me. But obviously you guys don't know that yet. You'll get it eventually. Probably. Anyways, I said everything would become evident, so here's the evidence, I guess. You guys gotta go back home. It's simple. Take out the heart of the monster. Everyone who got stuck here will return to their normal lives like it was all just some bad dream. You five will get booted back to your world as well, but unlike everyone who didn't come here willingly, you'll remember all of this. Like I said, simple. Should be easy for you, too."

Fauna tried to find the source of the voice. "But…what about you?"

There was a pause, as if they were shrugging. "My Askr doesn't exist anymore. I realized as much when I came here. So I guess I'll just disappear. Or I'll be able to join you guys in your world, but I think that might get confusing when your version of me comes along. Assuming your world gets a version of me, that is. But maybe it's better if you didn't. I dunno, it's a really complicated matter."

Well, that made a lot of sense.

"Sorry I have to do this. But otherwise I'm going to be spending way too much time explaining why you can believe me. Just remember I don't mean you any harm. If I did, there was plenty of opportunities to kill you if I wanted to. See you later! I know you can do it!"

The candles went out, leaving them in darkness. It took a moment to adjust to the sudden lack of light. Alfonse could tell right away that they weren't in the same room as before. When he looked for the others, however, he could only see four dark figures; three of them were huddled together, but the other was on the other side of the room. That's when his attention was brought to what was sleeping in the center.

It didn't have a shape. At least, he didn't think it did. From where he stood it looked like just a black blob. An ominous, kind-of-creepy black blob. Definitely not the most terrifying thing he'd seen. Still, he cautiously made his way to where the three figures were.

From the loud whispering, he could tell Fauna and Anna were talking. As he got closer, he could see Sharena was just sitting there.

"Fauna, it is literally just a blob," Anna pointed out.

"Blobs are terrifying," Fauna returned. "Especially ink blots. It bugs me. A lot."

"You're a weird kid, you know that?" Anna affectionately poked her.

Sharena laughed, though once again her attention seemed elsewhere. "She's with the right group, then."

Fauna smiled. "I like the term 'special.'"

"You're both," Anna decided. She noticed Alfonse and waved him over. "Good timing. We were just talking about how a blob is going to kill us." She smuggled a laugh. "Not the most practical nightmare in the world."

"If it was blood red would you fear it more?" Fauna asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"If it actually looked like something I might." Anna answered simply with a shrug. "The queen's scarier than that; I'll be honest. And she's practically a fluff ball. Then again someone that lacks that much brain is just…wrong."

"So…if it looked like Queen Henriette…you'd actually be scared?" Fauna just sounded confused now.

"Mildly more so, yes." Anna paused. "Just be lucky you haven't met her yet. Believe me, her presence is brain-rotting." She glanced at Alfonse and Sharena. "No offense."

"None taken," Sharena said. She seemed to be trying to think of something. "If our conversations last too long they cycle back to 'so, how are you and Alfonse doing? Good? Good.'" She even did an imitation of their mother's voice. "It gets— I GOT IT!"

(Can you tell I really didn't plan out the ending? Also, Fauna is specially weird.)


	30. Chapter 28

She was answered by a stern "shhhh."

"Oh, right. Sorry." Sharena pointed to the center of the blob. "It should be right around there."

Alfonse felt like he missed something.

Anna noticed his confused expression. "Apparently we've been loosely following Sharena's nightmare since yesterday morning—that's how she knew Natheniel could be trusted. I got her to try to remember if she knew where this heart thing was."

"Just don't touch it," Sharena warned. "Nothing good ever comes from touching a mysterious blob thing."

"Well, duh." Anna rolled her eyes. "I'm beginning to think it really wasn't that practical."

"It doesn't need to be practical to be terrifying," Fauna pointed out thoughtfully. "I used to be scared of the crunching sound dry leaves made when I stepped on them. But, like, only when I stepped on them."

"Is there anything you weren't scared of?" Sharena asked with a grin.

Fauna thought for a moment. "I haven't been afraid of myself yet. That's something, at least." She seemed to glance over to the other side of the room—where Veronica was.

Alfonse looked over the group once. "And none of you have some sort of plan," he guessed dully.

Anna shrugged. "Pretty much."

"Do you think it likes water?" Fauna shifted through her bag, pulling out…a spray bottle. She really did bring it.

"Wait, you literally packed the freaking water squirter." That was not a question. Anna frowned. "That's it. You've got bird food and a spray bottle. The first aid stuff is reasonable. Only you and the gods now what other stuff you have in there. I'm packing your bag next time." Alfonse could tell "stuff" was not the word she wanted to use.

"I mean, you could try," Sharena said.

Fauna nodded, and slowly started walking up to the blob. She held the spray bottle with both hands, and pulled the handle. The blob got smaller at contact with the cold water inside. Obviously surprised it worked, she kept squirting.

"Gods, nightmares are weird." Anna walked over to stand beside Fauna. "This is too easy."

Yet they watched as it continued to shrink. When only a slim pillar remained, a dark gray light pulsing through the center, Anna cut down the rest with an effortless swing of her axe. She cautiously picked up the round, smooth stone that emitted the light.

At first he didn't think anything had happened. Then he felt the snowflakes and saw the snow blanketing the ground around them. Anna still had the stone in her hands, and she observed it for a moment before putting it in her bag. Veronica was on her horse in front of them, letting out a sigh of relief as she took in the familiar surroundings and pulled her hood up. Alfonse almost lost his balance when Sharena hugged him.

"Yes! We're back!" Sharena stepped back a moment later. "It won't even take us two weeks to be back at the castle."

She was right—they were at the border, where they'd met up with Veronica.

"That was way too easy." Anna shook her head. "We've got to be dead or something. This can't just be the end."

"It's not." Veronica seemed to be looking at Anna's bag. At least, it looked like it; there wasn't much ways to tell with the hood over her head. "Nothing ends this easily. I'd look out for that Natheniel boy if I were you." She tugged the reins and the horse started moving away from them and towards the Emblian side of the border. "Good luck. You'll need it." She soon disappeared in the snowfall.

Fauna went to put the spray bottle away. "Guys…" She pulled out a piece of paper. "This wasn't in my bag before."

Anna immediately took it from her, and read it over. "Veronica's right. Once we fix the mess the Emblians no doubt made while we were gone, our next goal is to find Natheniel. This isn't where it ends…not by a long shot."

"But we can rest before that, right..?" Sharena asked as Anna began leading them back to the castle. "I've just about done my limit of questing for the next two months…" Alfonse couldn't help but notice that she was giving Anna's bag a wary stare.

"You're on cupcake and sleeping in duty," Anna decided. "And Fauna's gonna make sure you don't eat all of the cupcakes."

Sharena smiled. "You got it, Commander!"

(Yeah, that ending is completely out of place in this context...I needed to end off this story and wasn't quite feeling an action-y sequence. Whoops. On the bright side, I can confirm there's more to come! There's one more chapter and then a bonus I promised near the beginning of the story, then you'll have to be on the lookout for another story from me.)


	31. Chapter 29

It had been a week since they arrived back home at the castle. They figured out only about half the time they spent in the world of nightmares actually went by here, and just as Natheniel said, reports came in that all the missing people were back in their homes. Anna almost immediately went back to giving out orders to the Heroes; in their absence, Embla had come across the border again and took over the worlds in Askr. Sharena sent a letter to their mother. Fauna just relaxed and baked sweets for the hard-working Order.

Alfonse had finally gotten a moment to completely put everything away, having just set his bag in the corner of his room where it had been since they came back. While putting stuff away, he found the letter he'd placed in his room at the very beginning of the adventure.

He'd nearly forgotten about the letter Zacharias had given him. Eventually it just became less and less relevant as time went on, and other things had taken up his attention. Feeling a bit guilty that he hadn't gotten to it sooner, he unfolded the paper and began translating the text.

'I appreciate your help, I really do, but you're not going to find anything there. It's kind of cute that you're trying, though. But believe me, there's nothing to find that I don't already know there—there's probably not anything there at all.

I'll be honest, I didn't want it to come down to this. Anna's going to kill you and Veronica's going to murder me if either of them find out about this. It might not be easy but it would definitely be for the best to keep Sharena in the dark about this whole thing, too. She's not gonna like it and neither are you, but it's safest if as little people as possible know what I'm doing.

Alright, I'm done with the warnings. I need you to look into something for me; I can't do it myself because it's something only you can do. I'm not even sure you'll be able to pull it off. I can't tell you what it is on here, though. Don't worry I'll be writing normally from now on.

Remember, you don't have to help. It's going to be really risky. But if I'm right, this is something that could really help us. If you're willing, here's what you got to do: obviously you've got to write the letter. After that, you know that one oak tree by the courtyard—the one with the branches just thick enough and far enough apart for all three of us to sit in the tree at once? Where we practically scared Henriette to death that one year? Set your letter there. I'll come and get it. Check back every now and again for my reply.

And don't even think about waiting out for me! I know how your brain works.

Yours truly, Zacharias'

Now he felt worse for not reading it sooner. Zacharias had probably assumed Alfonse had declined. But what kind of friend would he be to do that?

A knock on the door kept him from replying to the letter.

"Alfonse, you coming?" It was Sharena. "Fauna just finished a batch of cookies and I want to get to the good ones before the Heroes do! Come on!"

"Coming!" He put the letter back where it was before. This time, he really would come back to it soon. Alfonse opened his door and was greeted by Sharena's warm smile. "You're looking better," he observed.

"You have no idea how thankful I am to whoever invented sleeping in," she replied. She gently took his arm and just barely gave him enough time to lock his door before she led him down the hall. "They were a genius."

…

Alfonse held his breath as he looked for a letter. He'd sent his reply, which was really just "I'd love to help," a little less than a month ago. Suffice to say he was beginning to grow a little anxious that his letter was gone but he'd not yet received an answer of his own. At best, someone found it and simply threw it away thinking it was something unimportant—there wasn't much in there that showed who was the writer and who the writer was writing to. At worst, someone had found out about it and Zacharias was getting in trouble for something Alfonse technically did.

His heart skipped a beat when he felt the letter. He pulled it out and, after checking to make sure no one else was here, opened it to read what it said. As promised, it was written normally.

'I knew I could count on you to agree. But I kind of hoped we wouldn't need to be working together this closely…it won't be hard for the others to mix up our intentions.

There's something that's been on my mind recently. And it's not something bright and fuzzy. If you can, I want you to look into Emblian visitors in Askr in the past twenty years. Well, more specifically, my mother. Something just feels off about the whole ordeal and I can't help but think there was more to that story than any of us have heard.

It's definitely not going to be easy; I'm pretty sure your father isn't going to let you just ask. Don't do anything stupid, and if it gets rough then quit. I don't want you getting hurt because of me.'

(Yay, cliffhangers! I actually don't know when the bonus is going to come; plans changed a bit.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the story! Not completely my best work, but I'm pretty sure I've done worse before, so...

Edited in to say: the next story is up! Click on my profile and look for the story titled "Untold Truths" for the next part!)


	32. Bonus- A Love Worth Dreaming Of

(Quick warning: anyone anti-LGBT+/get uncomfortable around gay people may want to stop reading now and never read any of my stories.)

The sky was clear, and the wind blew the stray sakura leaves across the field. Sharena wasn't here. Anna wasn't here. The Summoner wasn't here. It was just him…for now.

Maybe he wouldn't come. Or maybe someone would interrupt like last time he tried. Even if he did show up there was still the thought of rejection. But not by others—after all Alfonse was already frowned upon by nearly everyone in Askr now—by him. Sure, he might not exactly say no…but really anything should be prepared for.

He lost him once. If he's going to leave again…at least all would be said. There wouldn't be the one thing that always made him keep his distance. Fear held him back once; he won't let this attempt go in vain.

A rustling noise pulled Alfonse out of his thoughts. Moments later the person he'd been waiting for appeared.

"So what's all this about?" Zacharias asked, gesturing at the small collection of items. He sat down and took one of the cookies.

Alfonse blushed, all words he could think of gone. "I…I have something I need to confess."

Zacharias, for a moment, looked a bit shocked. Almost like he knew what he might say. Then he smiled again. "Go on."

"It's just… I think I'm in love with you." But before Zacharias could say anything else, Alfonse continued. "At first I just thought of you as a mutual friend. You helped show me I had my own mind beyond my father's plans for me. And as time passed, and we joined the Order…with you there I was able to forget everything else and just enjoy being with you. Honestly all my hard work kind of came crashing down, but…you were there too. It wasn't long after that I realized I was starting to feel something deeper than just friendship. But when it came to actually confessing it, I could never say it. Then the years went by and…you left."

He felt like he was doing this wrong. Like somewhere there was a mistake. Maybe that's just what the part of him that still had doubts wished. But he continued on with his awkward rambling.

"Then you came back but now you're our enemy and you want me to kill you and—"

"Alfonse, I—"

"Yes I know we're both princes, and we're never going to hear the end of this, but…" Alfonse said quickly, fearing the worst. Even if he was barely making sense. "No one really likes either of us anyway, right? I mean, you were exiled and I was basically disowned. Your parents are both dead whereas my father just pretends I am. The only ones who'd really notice would be our sisters, but they'd understand, right? I mean Sharena would but I don't think Veronica would like you dating me… But the point is there's no one to tell us no and you've proved to me we're our own people so…"

Zacharias chuckled. "You know you've always done that thing where you start overthinking and turning into a babbling mess around me. Actually I thought it was annoying, adorable, and frustrating all at the same time. At least now I know why."

"But…is that all..?" For a moment he was terrified. Spilled his heart out, told Zacharias the truth…only to get laughed at or rejected at the end. As his words started to sink in he started feeling like an idiot.

"No," Zacharias answered with a smirk. He leaned in, kissing Alfonse on the cheek

If his face wasn't red before, it definitely was now. This might very well be the best day of his life. He held his breath and waited for Zacharias's final words.

"I love you, too."

Alfonse smiled. "Does this mean—?"

The dream ended. And reality came crashing back to Alfonse.

It wasn't real at all. What little light the dream had given him was now replaced with the feeling of dread from not saying anything sooner. Of course he'd gotten that far; it was fake! The kiss, the laughter, the expression on Zacharias's face when he finally said it… it will never happen. They were princes of enemy kingdoms; somehow Alfonse doubted even his mother would agree to such a thing.

He clung onto those last few moments of the dream. One day, when this was all over…he'd tell him. That probably gave him plenty of time to start praying for results anywhere near the dream's…

(I wrote this like...4 months ago. From the moment posting this. And I've only found one problem: with the lack of stuff known about canonical Bruno, I've added a certain kind of playfullness to him. It kinda ties the knot in making this a two-way love.

By the way, this idea just popped into my head when I finished Book I. It has not left me since. You're welcome for the image of gay princes, the overenthusiastic sister that had flags and t-shirts printed with their faces on them to show her support, and the other sister that's sitting in the corner telling herself that's what makes him happy.)


End file.
